The Thermalox from Metrohm is said to be the very latest in total organic carbon and total nitrogen measurement, making it ideal for cleaning in place in the pharmaceutical industry
The Thermalox will measure from 10ppb to 10,000 ppm which means not only can final rinse waters be measured but every step along the way, from dirty to clean on the one instrument.
This giving a full picture of how cleaning is progressing.
Other systems rely on conductivity measurement to screen samples until the samples are sufficiently low to measure TOC as their instruments as they will not measure above 2ppm - in fact these instruments can be damaged by high TOC levels.
Sample Measuring time is between 30 seconds and two minutes.
Some analysers take 20 minutes per sample and have to disregard the first few results as being unreliable.
On system suitability checks using 1,4 benzoquinone gives 100% recovery using the Thermalox whereas others just pass the 80% limit.
Ease of use means that the Thermalox can be set up for operation by semi-skilled plant operatives.
High degree of automation means that the Thermalox makes up its own standards, from stock solutions, so all analysis and calibration is automatic.
With the autosampler, 104 samples can be processed in a single run without any variations due to human error.
