Supporting industry to manage and protect our water resources

Our RPS laboratories have been delivering water analysis services for many years. We’ve developed our own analysis methods that deliver a greater level of accuracy than the industry standard – this provides our clients with a greater level of confidence in our results and therefore their products. 

We are very pleased to announce that our analysis methods for Acid Herbicides and Triclosan are now UKAS accredited and have been added to our schedule.

Analytical method - Acid Herbicides

Acid herbicides is a term used to describe a wide range of common pesticides which are used both within agriculture and in domestic settings. They can enter the water system either by run-off or leaching from soils, or directly by spray and/or drift, which can then be ingested by humans via the food chain or drinking water. It’s essential for human health that crops are tested before harvest to ensure that any trace of the pesticides are absent.

Our method can analyse acid herbicides in surface and ground water and treated sewage effluent to 0.02ug/L.

Analytical method - Triclosan

Triclosan is an antibacterial agent, commonly found in antiseptic and disinfection products such as soaps and a variety of other household items, as well as chopping boards and sports equipment due to its antibacterial properties. As it’s found in many household items, triclosan is transported through the domestic sewage waste stream to Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP).

A significant portion of Triclosan is found to persist through conventional WWTPs, which means this is ultimately released into clean waterways and on land through the application of biosolids. Testing is critically important, not just for the biocidal effects that triclosan itself has, but also because it can form more harmful breakdown products.

As such, Triclosan is one of the compounds actively monitored by the Chemical Investigation Program (CIP) by Water Companies across the UK. RPS have been involved in the CIP programmes since 2011 delivering their objectives. Analysis of Triclosan is a new method that we started using as part of the second phase of the Chemicals Investigation Programme (CIP). We then developed this method further when we entered the third phase of the programme because the required detection level was reduced. Our analysis method can test for triclosan by LCMS/MS with a reporting limit of 0.01ug/L in surface water, treated sewage effluent and sewage influent.