Arsenic Everywhere

Corlyss B. Lewis, Industrial Test Systems, Inc., 1875 Langston Street, Rock Hill, SC 29730 Tel: 803-329-9712 Ext. 210
Ivars Jaunakais, Industrial Test Systems, Inc., 1875 Langston Street, Rock Hill, SC 29730, Tel: 803-329-9712 Ext. 201, Fax: 803-329-9743

Initially, the new Arsenic Revolution began with concerns of Arsenic in drinking water.  Since that time, the after shocks have shed light on concerns of Arsenic in food, soil, and human biological waste, urine.  Many individuals and companies scurried to provide some type of remediation or testing for Arsenic to be able to capitalize on the potential rewards.  Because of the haste and desire to produce something, anything first, many of the Arsenic test kits out today are not very accurate or versatile.  Industrial Test Systems, Inc. located in Rock Hill, SC has developed an Arsenic Quick Test Kit that can be used to test water, soil and human urine for Arsenic.

The chemistry of the test enables Arsenic levels as low as five parts per billion up to five hundred parts per billion to be detected.  The chemistry involves converting Arsenic compounds to Arsine gas.  The reaction of an acid, in powder form, enhanced with two metal salts, and Zinc dust generates the Arsine gas that is detected on a test strip.  The metal salts play a dual role, speeding up the reaction and verifying no interferences from the particular metals at the levels used.  The test was designed to determine the total Arsenic in a sample.  The test is not able to speciate the different forms of Arsenic, but the test is specific for inorganic Arsenic.

In other Arsenic test kits, Lead (Pb) is used to eliminate Hydrogen Sulfide.  Arsine gas alone can be quite dangerous, especially at high concentrations.  The danger becomes increasingly great when Lead (Pb) is added to the chemistry.  The Arsenic Quick Test Kit designed by Industrial Test Systems, Inc. can tolerate up to two parts per million of Hydrogen Sulfide without interference.  If Hydrogen Sulfide is present in a sample at two parts per million or less, Potassium Peroxymonosulfate, MPS, is involved in the chemistry to oxidize the Hydrogen Sulfide to Sulfate.

The Arsenic Quick Test Kit can be used to test water samples without any special sample preparation or sample pre-treatment.  However, it is necessary to pre-treat urine samples and prepare and pre-treat soil samples.  Test results, using water or soil samples, can be obtained in ten minutes, and human urine samples currently require twenty minutes to obtain results.  Again the versatility of the test kit is displayed with the color chart.  One color chart, calibrated at twenty-two degrees Celsius, can be used for the three sample matrices for color comparison.  There is some minimal calculation required to obtain the total amount of Arsenic (mg/L) in human urine.  But, the Arsenic results for water and soil can be recorded directly from the color chart.  Currently, a patent is pending on the unique chemistry of this Arsenic test kit.

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