TestAmerica Featured at the 2016 Pittcon Conference and Expo in Atlanta, GA

WebWire
Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Dr. Mark Bruce, Corporate Technical Director at TestAmerica, recently presented on the Analysis of Dissolved Hydrocarbon Gases in Water – Pitfalls and Improvements on March 9th at the 2016 Pittcon Conference and Expo in Atlanta, GA.

Analysis of methane and other light hydrocarbons is frequently done as part of pre-drill background studies in support of hydraulic fracturing activities in shale. Gaseous hydrocarbon analysis in water is also used to monitor degradation of environmental contaminants. There is no fully validated USEPA method for this analysis and commercial environmental laboratories typically reference an SOP (RSK-175) from an EPA lab. There is significant variability in how this SOP is interpreted and implemented and there are no commercially available proficiency test samples. Hence, the method performance is not documented as well as other common environmental tests. Some internal studies indicate there are opportunities to improve accuracy and reproducibility and provide data more suitable for the oil & gas industry. Development and use of water based calibration standards and proficiency testing samples will facilitate other method improvements and documentation of method performance. Also, several different sample preparation options have been evaluated for both accuracy and precision.