How Does the PeCOD Compare to the CODcr Method?
BOD Analysis Challenges for Wastewater Treatment Optimization
Biological oxygen demand (BOD) is one of the key parameters that wastewater treatment plants measure. Monitoring BOD is important as it indicates the condition of the wastewater and what kind of effect it will have on the plant and animal life in receiving waters. Additionally, facilities may have discharge limits that they must comply with.
Unfortunately, the BOD test takes 5 days to perform, therefore the results are not timely for everyday treatment decision making. This is why many facilities use chemical oxygen demand (COD) tests as they are faster and can be correlated to BOD.
Comparing the PeCOD Method to CODcr
The traditional method of measuring COD is the COD by dichromate (CODcr) method. However, CODcr is hazardous, requires laboratory trained staff and can take up to 3 hours for results. In comparison, MANTECH’s patented PeCOD® analyzer is a more rapid, safer and greener option for obtaining BOD/COD results.
Rapid Results
Although it takes less time to perform the CODcr test than the 5-day BOD test, 2-3 hours is still too long for decision making, especially if facilities have a limited footprint. This happens to be the case for one of MANTECH’s wastewater treatment customers, who needs to divert trucks of wastewater for treatment or discharge in less than 2 hours. The peCOD method involves an advanced oxidation process on a small amount of sample to deliver results in only 10 minutes!
Safer Reagents
Unlike the CODcr method, PeCOD does not use any hazardous reagents, such as mercury, sulfuric acid and dichromate. Instead, only salt and sugar reagents are used to mix with the sample. This makes the peCOD method safer and accessible for operators to use.
Environmentally Friendly Waste
Since the advanced oxidation process is essentially a treatment process itself, the waste from peCOD analysis can be disposed directly down the drain. This eliminates the need for the hazardous waste disposal required for the CODcr test.
PeCOD Measures Both BOD & COD Results
When comparing the peCOD and CODcr, this is done based on how they analyze for COD as CODcr is strictly a COD test, but the PeCOD® analyzer can obtain both BOD and COD results.
As more organic compounds can be chemically oxidized than biologically oxidized, COD tends to be higher than BOD, therefore COD is considered a more aggressive test. With the peCOD technology, users can tune the aggressiveness of the oxidation to generate a BOD result. This makes it even easier to reference peCOD results for treatment optimization because no correlation factor needs to be applied.
Due to its rapid, safe & green method, the PeCOD® analyzer is the superior tool for wastewater operators & engineers to utilize when monitoring their wastewater. For remote monitoring at constant intervals, an online configuration of the PeCOD® analyzer is available to autonomously sample and analyze directly from the sample stream.
