A Mercury Free Method for Analysis of Organic Matter in Wastewater and Waste Products
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Käppalaförbundet |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 1 943 497 |
| Project duration | October 2014 - March 2016 |
| Status | Completed |
Purpose and goal
The goal was to validate a mercury-free COD method meeting the wastewater treatment plants´ needs through pre-commercial innovation procurement (PCP). Three methods passed the requirements of the procurement and were evaluated. One from Macherey-Nagel, COD-Cr without Hg but with correction for measured Cl concentration, made it through the rigorous validation. The method works well for the incoming wastewater samples (bias < 5% cf. COD-Cr) at all three laboratories and for one of three labs also on the effluent water (bias < 15% cf. COD-Cr). It is Hg-free, but not free of di-chromate.
Expected results and effects
The manufacturer Macherey-Nagel is ready to sell the test commercially on order. After standard internal validation at each lab could the test be ordered and used for monitoring and process development. One important lesson from the project is that due to scope and form of the PCP do the innovations that are allowed to go into the evaluation stage have to be very close to fully developed (high technology readiness level). Essentially they should only need to be tested/validated on the application in question to be commercialized.
Planned approach and implementation
The project has been implemented essentially following the Vinnova manual for PCP and divided into two phases: 1) procurement of suppliers including evaluation of the supplier capabilities and the potential of the innovations; and 2) evaluation of the selected analysis methods. Phase 2 was successfully split into two sub-phases where innovations shown not relevant could be sorted out and the focus put on the one final method that worked. Crucial for a successful PCP is that enough time is given to each phase, particularly when experimental evaluation of the innovations is necessary.