Researchers Work To Make Environmental Testing Simpler, Less Costly

September 30, 1996

GAINESVILLE — As President Clinton pushes for quicker cleanups of urban waste and stricter enforcement against environmental crimes, researchers at the University of Florida are trying to make environmental testing methods simpler and less costly.

Current methods for testing are problematic. Sample preparation is time-consuming, labor-intensive, hazardous to workers and a major source of errors. The final step, interpreting data, consumes about half the staff resources in environmental labs.

The solution, UF researchers say, is an automated lab that fits in the back of a tractor trailer.

“We’ll be able to take the trailer right out to a site, take soil samples, run the samples right to the trailer, do the chemical analysis and get the results fast with less expense,” said Carl Crane, a mechanical engineering professor at the UF College of Engineering. “Ideally, you’ll only need one operator to do the whole thing.”

Crane and his fellow UF researchers have been working on the standard laboratory module for the Contaminant Analysis Automation Program, a project of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Enforcement of environmental laws is becoming a hot issue this political season. Attorney General Janet Reno recently proposed beefing up enforcement of environmental crimes, and the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to speed up the cumbersome Superfund law and is pushing for quicker cleanups of urban waste and enforcement of air and water pollution statutes.

Laboratory automation can improve chemical analysis by reducing analysis cost per sample, increasing precision and accuracy of results, minimizing exposure of personnel to hazardous materials and decreasing the time between sample submission and production of the final report.

“That’s where the big payoff is,” Crane said.

The automation program focuses on the most common methods required by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense for environmental remediation. Studies have shown that approximately 80 percent of the environmental analyses for these departments can be met by nine analytical methods, which researchers say can be done by the automated system.

Rene Bohren, a graduate student in mechanical engineering who has been working on the module, said the system has many advantages over current testing methods. It can run 24 hours a day and is more precise with less chance for human error. The operator needs only input data into a computer and place and remove beakers for the samples. While the system is running, the operator can work on something else.

“You only need one person to push the start button and put in the beakers,” Bohren said. “And even that at some point will be automated. Having an automated system will give much better results in the long run.”

UF researchers are working on the prototype for the automated sample preparation module, as well as advanced training and maintenance modules to serve the system. The system consists of several modules that perform various tasks, with work also being done at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas. Nine industrial partners also are involved in the project, as well as five Department of Energy laboratories. In addition, DOE has signed a cooperative research and development agreement with SciBus Analytical Inc., which will try to introduce the technology into the marketplace.

“DOE has a plan to make this a success commercially and get the technology into the hands of industry,” Crane said.