Catalog

Veritas is a dedicated, at-line water analyzer designed for continuous, automated monitoring of industrial effluents in factories or surface or ground waters in treatment plants.  By performing laboratory quality analyses at the point-of-use, Veritas saves labor and transportation costs, allows more frequent sampling (to match process needs and to record spills), and eliminates potential contamination and degradation over current lab-based procedures.

At its core, this unique analytical instrument uses leading-edge capillary liquid chromatography microfluidics to minimize reagent and solvent consumption.  This key choice minimizes package size, heating and cooling requirements and safety concerns (about use of organic solvents) while simultaneously maximizing mass sensitivity of trace analytes in a given sample volume. 

Cartridge-based solid-phase extraction (SPE) is integrated into the analyzer to pre-concentrate trace amounts of target molecules one-thousand-fold to further boost detectable limits.  Point-of-use sampling allows metered flow of 100 ml up to one or more liters using a metering pump.  Thus, detection limits can be easily and dynamically improved by extending sampling time.  Or quantitative accuracy can be improved using custom volumetric samplers.  

Each SPE cartridge is used once to process one sample and then discarded to prevent cross-contamination between samples.  Samples may also be repeated using more than one cartridge chemistry.

Detection sensitivity is dramatically improved by summing signal over all wavelengths using full-spectrum optics benches.  Absorption is enhanced using Waters patented extended path-length flow cell.  Fluorescent detection is available for the most sensitive quantitation.  The spectrum obtained in each case allows positive identification of chromatographic peaks, a vast improvement over use of retention times alone.

An integral multi-component sensor checks background (matrix) water parameters such as pH, salinity, alkalinity, nitrate and dissolved oxygen to ensure that the instrument is operating within its working range.

Smart separation cartridges are pre-programmed with certified customer methods.  The cartridge is simply plugged into a mating manifold (no wrenches!) on the analyzer and clamped in place.  Once recognized, the cartridge ‘sets up’ all operational parameters required to run that method on that analyzer system in that plant.

Water sampling then proceeds by scheduled times or intervals or may be initiated ‘on demand’ by a remote operator or a plant control system.  When the desired volume of water has been processed (with the target analytes absorbed on the cartridge), extraction begins using a minimum volume of an ultra-pure organic solvent.  This extracted sample is further reduced to the microvolumes required for capillary LC injection in a fixed-loop injector.  After injection, development of the chromatogram begins using optimized column chemistries and ultra-pure elution solvents.  Each target molecule interacts selectively with the column packing (beads) resulting in different retention times as individual species (peaks) elute from the column.  Separation of similar molecules may be enhanced by varying the eluent composition over time (a gradient) as the  chromatographic run proceeds.

The eluent passes from the column to one or more detector where the identity and amount of each peak are tabulated.  This raw and resultant compositional data is sent automatically to a local or remote data server on a wired or wireless network for viewing from any standard browser.  Local alarms can be set for out-of-spec control actions to initiate from the plant control system.

Point-of-Use, Point-Source,
Points-of-'lyte'