Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Chemistry

Committee Chair

Paul S Simone

Committee Member

Gary L Emmert

Committee Member

Xiaohua Huang

Committee Member

Nathan DeYonke

Committee Member

Michael Brown

Abstract

In this dissertation, a low cost liquid delivery system and an automated titration system have been developed using a Raspberry Pi single board computer, 3D printing, and commercial-off-the-shelf components. In addition, an on-line single point internal calibration method has been developed for haloacetic acid rapid-response (HAA-RR) system, a commercial analyzer for analysis of nine haloacetic acids (HAA9) in drinking water.The low cost liquid delivery system, the EZ-AutoPipet, was developed to deliver microliter volumes accurately and reproducibly. The EZ-AutoPipet produced excellent results regardless of analyst experience and performed better than traditional and commercial dosing devices at lower volumes. Several validation studies have been performed to establish the accuracy and precision of liquid delivery. The hardness and alkalinity titrations were performed using the EZ-AutoPipet to verify the feasibility of using it as automated buret.The automated titration system was adapted from the EZ-AutoPipet and further developed into the EZ-AutoTitrator. It is a semi-automated system capable of performing potentiometric (pH-based) and spectrochemical titrations, pH and temperature measurements. The standard titration methods for alkalinity (pH titration) and total hardness (spectrochemical titration) have been adapted to the EZ-AutoTitrator. The alkalinity and hardness methods were validated and tested at two different water treatment plants. The EZ-AutoTitrator had good accuracy and precision for both titration methods. The preliminary testing of iodometric titration for determination of free available chlorine (FAC) in bleach samples has been performed.An on-line single point internal calibration for the HAA-RR system was developed and tested. The internal calibration addressed issues with external calibration by injecting the internal standard (2-Bromobutanoic acid) and haloacetic acid sample sequentially using a ten-port injection valve and two vial autosampler. The HAA-RR system was completely automated and can analyze the drinking water samples for a week without operator interaction. This work eliminated the errors associated with sample preparation and manual addition of the internal standard. The robustness studies showed that the internal calibration compensates for changes in response due to changes in system.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

Notes

Embargoed until 6-7-2022

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