Development of an On-Line Monitoring Platform and Procedure for Rapid Environmental and Process Monitoring of Heavy Oil Extraction Operations and Industrial Activity

Abstract

Developing monitoring systems for micro-pollutants and toxic substances to be able to protect particularly valuable and vulnerable areas against negative environmental pressures and impacts, and be in the forefront concerning environmental issues, several basic research aspects within environmental monitoring needs to be addressed.

With an increasing demand for on-site online and real-time monitoring in the areas of environmental surveys, membrane introduction mass spectrometry (MIMS) has seen increased use. For flexible and thorough analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and semivolatile organic compounds (SVOC), e.g. in the environment, the analytical system should preferably be brought to the location of interest and allow continuous monitoring, locally or remote/on-line. This would allow to immediately respond to undesirable levels of analyte and provide instant feed-back regarding analyte levels of any measures taken at the site. An optimized heat exchanger – MIMS interface is presented in combination with a continuous flow internal standard addition for quantification. Both continuous infusion of toluene-d8 and standard addition in sample line while analyzing samples ensures the ability for online calibration together with correcting for any drift in signal, and without any need for more comprehensive calibration steps pre or post analysis.

The work presented in this thesis demonstrates the capability of Membrane Introduction Mass Spectrometry as a method for on-line and real-time measurement of VOC’s and SVOC’s in atmospheric and aqueous matrices. Several improvements and method developments have been studied and tested to improve analyte response, quantification, data sampling and handling, georeferencing and the elimination of external influence of the earth’s magnetic field on electron ionization.