On August 12th , Yun Nan Information Pater reported the topic called “5000 tons of Chromium residues are coming, killing sheep & pigs and poisoning waters”, which attached great attentions of the media. The article details one chemistry factory in Lu Liang county for discharging virulent Chromium residues.
According to the article, 5000 tons of Chromium residues were poured into the reservoir, causing the content of Cr6+exceeding normal standards by 2000 times. Soon after this, 300,000 cubes of waste water were poured into Nan Pan River-the source of Pearl River, through pipelines, which directly influences the water qualities of Pearl River delta regions, threatening peoples health through drinking-water, planting, and other processes.
This event attached great attentions to Chromium pollutions from the environmental industry. Now what are the harms of Chromium pollutions? What is the current situation? How to detect Chromium pollutions? This article will answer these for you.
Harms:may cause cancers
What are Chromium residues and what are the harms?
As we know, Chromium is a kind of hard silvery white metal, which is a little lighter than Fe. Only if Chromium is transformed into products with unsolvable forms, it will transform into chromium ion, dissolving into water becoming extreme toxic Cr6+.
Chromium residues are the toxic industrial slag formed during the process of manufacturing metallic chromium and chromium salts. Disposed in the air and wetted by rains, Cr6+ will dissolve into the underground water, rivers, or lakes, causing amplified environmental pollutions and harms.
According to the introductions of researchers from Professional Sanitation & Poison Control Department of China Disease Control & Prevention Center, Cr6+ is extremely possible for getting cancers. It intrudes into human bodies through digestive tract, respiratory tract, skin, and mucosa, finally mainly assembled in liver, kidney, and endocrine glands. When humans or animals drink this water, Cr6+ will be absorbed by tissues and organs.
Therefore, if Chromium residues left from the past are not dealt with effective methods, it will be a very serious latent safety problem to the whole ecosystem.
Status: still 12 provinces or cities exist Chromium residues
The Chromium residues pollution occurred in Qu Jing city, He Nan province was not the first case. Actually, Chromium pollutions are historical problems.
According to the former statistics of Chromium Residues Comprehensive Control Policy issued by NDRC & SEPA on October, 2005, the production and consumption of Chromium salts amounts rank the first in the world at that time. The total amounts of Chromium salts are more than 2 million tons, producing more than 6 million tons of Chromium residues. And 2 million of them are decontaminated, with more than 4 million tons left.
According to this status, Chromium Residues Comprehensive Control Policy was proposed and the rest of the Chromium residues would be decontaminated at the end of 2010.
However, these goals were not achieved by the end of 2010. According to statistics of “China Environmental Status Public Report 2010”issued by SEPA on June, 2011, the total amounts of decontaminated Chromium residues are more than 3 million tons until the end of 2010. 7 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) has decontaminated, such as Hebei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hubei, Chongqing, and Shanxi. Still 12 provinces or cites (Tianjin, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Henan, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang) exist chromium residues, with the amount of nearly 1 million tons.
Testing: X-ray Fluorescence effectively detect Chromium pollutions
The current status of Chromium pollutions is not very satisfying, so it is very important for Chromium and other hazardous chemical compounds.
X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) is a rapid and effective testing method for Chromium pollutions. As the domestic bellwether in XRF field, Skyray Instrument has applied core XRF technology in Chromium pollution testing. NEXT, we are going to introduce 3 types of instruments specially designed for Chromium pollution testing:
Rapid Chromium content testing in soil
Genius 9000 XRF Handheld Heavy Metals Contaminated Soil Analyzer
Genius 9000 XRF Handheld Heavy Metals Contaminated Soil Analyzer is developed on basis of EDX-P930, bearing good effects on Chromium pollutions is soil and solid waste material in-situ testing.
Easy-of-use Genius 9000 XRF can directly test out the Chromium content in soil in 5 to 10 sec, without needing of preprocessing to samples, bearing the similar precision of labs. It is the best assistant for primary on-site testing.
Coming into the market on July this year, Genius 9000 is highly paid attentions by the market. In fact, Genius 9000 has replaced 3rd generational handheld analyzer-EDX-P930 and is commonly accepted by insiders. It did great helps in several heavy metals pollutions in China, and obtains favorable comments from Environment Monitoring Stations, environment protection corporations and Scientific & Research Departments.
Comparing to EDX-P930, Genius 9000XRF is more stable, precise and rapid. Small power end-window X-ray tube, large dimensional Beryllium window Silicon Drift Detector (SDD), and self-developed miniature digital multi-channel processor greatly improves resolution and statistic counting rate of the instrument. Besides, it bears the ability of rapid testing in 1-2 sec, and 10 sec for precise testing (similar results as the lab) plus a pedestal.
On-site monitoring Cr6+ in water
WAOL 2000-Cr6+ (Water Quality Online Analyzer- Cr6+)
WAOL 2000-Cr6+ is another new product of Skyray Instrument, specially designed for on-site testing of Cr6+ in water.
Cr6+ is very toxic. Therefore, all levels of automatic water monitoring stations, waterworks, regional boundary points, water quality analysis departments, and all levels of environment monitoring institutions all need to operate on-site monitoring to water environment pollution sources(leather mills, paper mills, plating mills), controlling discharge content of Cr6+. And WAOL 2000-Cr6+ is very suitable for it.
On February, 2011, Environment Protection Department issued the National Environment Protection Standard: “Technical Requirements for Cr6+ Water Quality Online Monitoring Instrument”, which comes into effect on June 1st. In the Standard, specific technical requirements of Cr6+ Water Quality Online Monitoring Instruments are firstly proposed out. Through comparison with on-site testing results to laboratory results, independently developed Skyray Water Quality Online Analyzer- WAOL 2000-Cr6+ fully fits to the requirements of national standards.
Contrast of WAOL 2000-Cr6+ to National Environment Protection Standard:
