Urenco's Capenhurst site supplies the nuclear industry with uranium enrichment services and advanced enrichment technologies and expertise.
Urenco installed Elga Labwater water purification equipment when it built its laboratory facilities, to meet the needs of a busy analytical facility serving Capenhurst's continuous centrifuge enrichment plant.
Theses stand-alone water purifiers provide ultra-pure water for techniques including ICP-MS and ICP-OES spectrometry.
Katharine Hales, operations manager at Urenco, said: 'As well as carrying out product-related work, we also monitor environmental discharges for toxic metals.
'Accuracy is critical, so we use 18.2Mohm.cm resistivity ultra-pure water for everything from making-up standards to rinsing the glassware.' This ultra-pure water is produced in a two stage process.
Mains water is treated in a Purelab Option S, which uses reverse osmosis and ion exchange to produce purified water better than distilled water.
A Purelab Ultra Ionic polishes the water with a combination of ion exchange, UV photo-oxidation and microfiltration, to ultra-pure water standards 18.2MW.cm resistivity.
When there is no demand for treated water, the Purelab Ultra re-circulates the product to ensure the quality is maintained.
The dispense head at the top of the unit allows access for tall vessels.
It is fitted with a 0.2um filter as a final guard on water quality.
The Ultra Ionic's dispensing system automatically delivers a pre-set volume of ultra-pure water straight into the flask.
Rapid dispensing means fewer queues and minimises the possibility of contaminating the water.
Front-entry service doors provide easy access for changing cartridges.
An easy-to-read display provides a warning when the cartridges need to be changed.
The units can be mounted on a wall or on a bench.
