Following a rigorous testing programme, Hach Lange’s Biotector B7000 Online TOC Analyser has been awarded the 200th product conformity MCERTS certificate by SIRA, the body that manages the MCERTS scheme on behalf of the UK Environment Agency.
The Biotector B7000 is the latest Hach Lange product to achieve MCERTS in a line that began with the company’s portable and online samplers, which were awarded a certificate at WWEM 2008. This latest certificate confirms that the B7000 complies with stringent MCERTS performance specifications across three ranges (0–20 mg/l, 0-1,000 mg/l and 0-10,000 mg/l) and is considered suitable for use on treated wastewater, untreated wastewater, surface water, estuarine and coastal water applications.
Presenting the certificate on behalf of the Environment Agency, Paul Wiggins said: “The purpose of the MCERTS scheme is to assure the quality of environmental monitoring, by providing instrument users with confidence that certified equipment is capable of producing the quality of data that we require. However, the success of the MCERTS scheme could not have been achieved without the support of manufacturers such as Hach Lange.
“We recognise that certification represents an investment in time and resources that can sometimes be hard to justify when an instrument is already a market leader, but we believe that the attainment of a certificate will provide marketing advantage and demonstrate that a manufacturer is committed to quality. I congratulate Hach Lange on the achievement of this milestone certificate and thank them for their continued commitment to MCERTS.”
In the past, the Environment Agency conducted a large amount of industrial environmental monitoring, but in recent years this responsibility has shifted to the process operators themselves, and the MCERTS scheme is helping to ensure that the quality of monitoring remains high. Nevertheless, Matthew Dillon, UK & Ireland Sales Director at Hach Lange, says: “As a manufacturer we invest heavily in the development of instruments and analysers that are robust, reliable, accurate and simple to use. However, it is extremely important that the recommended maintenance and calibration procedures are followed assiduously because failure to do so would threaten the quality of data and would not be acceptable to the Agency.”
To further support the quality of monitoring, Hach Lange regularly runs training workshops and can provide personal competence training for key staff so that users are able to obtain optimal performance from their Hach Lange instruments.
“One of our key goals is to ensure that our customers are able to generate the highest quality data and we see the MCERTS scheme as an important contributor to that goal,” says Dillon.
“At Hach Lange we aim to offer the widest range of MCERTS products on the market; we already have a good number of certificates and we currently have a variety of products undergoing MCERTS evaluation. These include the SC1000 Digital Controller with sensors for pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonium and turbidity, and portable devices such as the HQD range of electrochemical instruments for pH, conductivity and dissolved oxygen.”