Monitoring Volatile Organic Compounds Using GC and GC-MS

Monitoring the 981 miles of the Ohio River helps to protect the designated uses of this waterbody and is a core directive of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO). ORSANCO's Organics Detection System is a networked array that relies on the cooperative efforts and partnerships with fixed facility stations, comprising public and private drinking water utilities and commercial industry.

This webcast will discuss the challenges of monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) over such a large area, and the workflows developed to address this challenge. In particular:

• Methods used to confirm presence and verify absence of VOCs from source water
• How we use calibrated GC-MS systems for detection of 30 compounds, and potential identification of thousands of volatiles
• Use of purge and trap technology for pre-treatment and GC or GC–MS for separation and near real-time monitoring with either autosamplers or a flow-through sample delivery matrix on a process GC instrument
• Addition of closed network Internet access allowing for remote access into instruments for troubleshooting, diagnosing repair, maintenance issues, and ability to view real time occurrences at ALL monitoring sites.

Presenter: Lila Ziolkowski (MPH Quality Assurance Officer and Analytical and Environmental Chemist Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission)

Has served with ORANSCO for over 16 years. Oversees operations of ODS, spill notification and emergency response. Prior, she was interim Quality Supervisor for Hill Canyon Treatment plant in Thousand Oaks, CA, and Portsmouth Water Treatment plant in Suffolk, VA. Also worked in commercial contract and clinical laboratories. Lila has a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from Emory University and a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology and Immunology from University of California, Berkeley.

Presenter: Wei Liu, Ph.D, MBA (Sr. Marketing Development Manager Thermo Fisher Scientific)

Sr. Market Development Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific, with focus on trace elemental analysis applications in environmental and industrial markets. Earlier, Wei worked as a scientist in field of industrial enzymes and drug discovery and has held a variety of roles, including regional marketing manager, product manager and market research manager. Wei earned an MBA from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has 14 international scientific publications and holds 4 patents.