The current requirement in the UK is to be able to quantify the toxic oxyhalide bromate in drinking water supplies to below 10ug/l and to demonstrate an analytical sensitivity of 1ug/l bromate
Standards for the quality of drinking water in the United Kingdom are some of the toughest in the world, with primary responsibility for assessing compliance of the individual water companies falling onto the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
The current requirement is to be able to quantify the toxic oxyhalide bromate in drinking water supplies to below 10ug/l and to demonstrate an analytical sensitivity of 1ug/l bromate.
The analysis of bromate in drinking (and other water) supplies can be reliably and accurately measured using the 844 Compact UV/vis ion chromatograph (IC) from Metrohm according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 326.0.
The instrument is equipped with a diode array detector (Dad) which means that three freely definable wavelengths plus a reference can be measured; this is useful as bromate also shows strong absorbance at 290nm in addition to the 352nm described in the method.
The EPA document recommends that the EPA method 326.0 should only be performed by experienced chromatographers and IC users but, with the optional intuitive IC Cap interface from Metrohm, the instrument can be run by novice users with a single mouse click.
Metrohm says it recognises that the world of ion chromatography has changed over recent years and not all users of IC instruments have a honours degree coupled with ten years practical experience.
