28 Air Monitoring
referred delegates to the Technical Guidance Note 'TGN M20' for further help.
The final Conference presentation was given jointly by Emily Jarvis from Sira and Karsten Pletscher from TUV in Germany who described the change in approach that is underway to align the MCERTS scheme in England and Wales and the German TUV scheme with the development of a European Standard EN 15267.
The EN 15267 series of standards provides a complete system for approval testing and certification (QAL 1) of CEMs which is valid throughout Europe. The presentation described the current UK and German approach to obtaining QAL1 certification and highlighted the cooperation between Sira in the UK and UBA/TUV in Germany and the related benefits to instrument manufacturers.
Improving monitoring quality and consistency
BS EN 14181 is a European Standard that provides a quality assurance procedure for continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) on processes falling under both the Waste Incineration (WID) and Large Combustion Plant (LCPD) directives.
Rohit Chirodian from UKAS gave a presentation in which he described the development of a project to improve the consistency and quality of emissions monitoring by providing UKAS accreditation to BS EN 14181. He explained that the project began with a pilot project covering 15 monitoring organisations and culminated in the grant of accreditation for all participants to BS EN 14181 in January 2011. From 1st May 2011 the Environment Agency will no longer accept test reports for BS EN 14181 (QAL2 and Annual Surveillance Testing) that are not accredited.
Rohit explained that in the course of the pilot project, some of the main areas for improvement included staff training records and authorisation, internal audit scheduling, report content, site specific protocol content and spreadsheet validation.
BS EN 14181 is designed to ensure that the correct equipment is employed, that is set up correctly and that it is running correctly. This last issue was addressed by the Agency's Rick Gould, who emphasised the importance of functional tests by highlighting the potential financial penalties that could accrue, from carbon trading for example, if emission monitors are working incorrectly. Rick's presentation covered the functional tests for Continuous Emissions Monitors (CEMs), which are:
• Alignment and cleanliness • Integrity of the sampling system • Documentation and records • Serviceability • Leak test
• Zero and span • Linearity • Interferences • Response time • Report of functional tests
Rick explained that any competent person can perform the functional tests, that competency is going to be specific to certain CEMs and he promoted the concept of preventative maintenance to minimise costs and avoid failures. Finally, he
The presentation also discussed the requirements for updating certification to reflect the current EN 15267 scheme and the methods for doing so. In addition, the speakers mentioned that it may be possible for existing data to be used for the purpose of recertification to the new standard. There are some additional tests and requirements that have been added to EN 15267 from the previous schemes, but much of the original data may be suitable for use and complete retesting can be avoided.
The overall theme of the final presentations was to describe and report on the positive progress being made by the two countries in making EN 15267 certification easier for manufacturers to obtain.
Workshops
A comprehensive series of workshops ran throughout the event, providing visitors with an opportunity to pick from a vast array of subjects. Most of the Workshops were run by the companies that populated the exhibition and the six Workshops rooms were sited within the exhibition so that visitors could drop in to those sessions that caught their interest.
The majority of the workshops were very well attended, some with standing room only, but the most popular were those that were less promotional and provided practical help and advice.
Summary
In common with previous STA events, MCERTS 2011 provided an opportunity for the air and gas monitoring community to meet and catch up on the latest regulatory and technological issues. However, whilst the venue had to be changed at the last minute, the organisers have been delighted with the result, which provides an excellent opportunity for the event to evolve and grow – watch this space!
Sira is now able to accept QAL1 (EN 14181) test data and EN 15267-2 audit data from TUV and use this as the basis for MCERTS certification, and vice versa. This collaboration between the UK and Germany will hopefully provide a foundation for other relevant bodies in Europe.
One of the great advantages of the diversity of workshop themes was that the latest standards and almost every common gas species and particulate was covered by one or more workshops, so MCERTS 2011 visitors were able to find an answer to almost any monitoring problem.
Exhibition
The overriding benefit of MCERTS 2011 is that every single participant at the event has a professional interest in the testing and monitoring of gas or particulate emissions and air quality. Consequently, every exhibition stand is of interest to every visitor and every visitor is a potential customer for the exhibitors. As a result, feedback from the exhibitors refers to the 'quality' of the visitors – by this they mean that, as a focused event, MCERTS provides access to the right people.
Land Instrument’s Ben Wileman said: “We have had two good days on our stand and the event has provided the perfect platform for us to present our new LANCOM 4 portable gas analyser for the first time in the UK. Additionally, the overall organisation of the exhibition has been very impressive.”
Ryan Goater, of PCME, said: “The overall experience has been positive for us and we have received a number of enquiries which we hope will turn into new business. The venue is very impressive and the event itself has proved to be the ideal place to display our new measurement system for use in wet gas stream processes.”
Durag’s Dr Kevin Bate concurred, adding: “Overall the event was very good for us. In terms of location and the workshops, the venue worked very well and the two presentations I gave were well attended.”
Ashtead Technology was also delighted with their participation. Jay Neermul said: “MCERTS 2011 proved to be an ideal event at which to launch our new finance schemes, which help to improve access to the latest environmental monitoring instrumentation by spreading the costs.”
Airbourne Tritium Sampler Introduced
SDEC (France) is proud to introduce the H3R 7000, an innovative instrument for sampling airborne Tritium. It allows the user to collect a sample of (tritiated) water vapour sufficient to perform an activity measurement in less than 40 minutes.
The liquid sample obtained allows you to perform liquid scintillation measurements with a detection limit of 0.01 Bq/m3 . . The operating principle is based on an international patent from the French institute of radioprotection (I.R.S.N) and the French Navy military school of atomic energy (E.A.M.E.A).
The H3R 7000 performs fast trapping of Tritium in vapour form, which allows several samples to be taken each day and with a trapping efficiency HTO of 100%. The samples are not diluted and the H3R 7000 has a detection limit of 0.01 Bq/m3
This unit includes a ‘quick start mode’ and carries out automatic calculation of the sampling time based on actual absolute air humidity (RH/T measurement). Additionally; the H3R 7000 performs automatic drying between samples, which avoids cross-contamination (<0.1%). An integral USB output and printer is also included to allow for easy reporting and labelling.
Reader Reply Card No. 78
IET May / June 2011
www.envirotech-online.com
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