Wastewater treatment plants have traditionally used chlorine in the final disinfection step. However, over the last 15 to 20 years, peracetic acid has been recognized as offering benefits over chlorine. One of them is that the breakdown products from peracetic acid are merely hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid which eventually break down into water, oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Peracetic acid is a very effective biocide. It turns out the same method that’s used to measure chlorine can also be used to measure peracetic acid.
Since CHEMetrics offers a peracetic acid test kit, CHEMetrics Research & Development Director Joanne Carpenter was asked to lead a joint task group under standard methods in order to write a test method. A collaborative study occurred subsequently in order to validate the group's work.
We're proud of Joanne and the task group's accomplishment because there is now a reliable technique for measuring peracetic acid -- one that analysts and state regulators can use to aid in the conversion of more wastewater treatment plants to the greener, PAA-based disinfection method.
