Reducing Testing Times for Concentration of Coolant Liquids by Changing Long HPLC Analysis to Short 'One Click' Spectroscopic Analysis

Amit Koppel, IAF, IDF, Gedera, Israel (amit@koppelfamily.net)
Amos Fellig , Iaf, Idf, Gedera, Israel
Yalfal Syum, Iaf, Idf, Gedera, Israel
Moshe Rabaev , Iaf, Idf, Gedera, Israel
Adva Ziv Zehavi Cohen, Iaf, Idf, Gedera, Israel

It is customary to perform quantification of liquid mixtures by chromatography analysis. In our laboratory, we perform HPLC analysis to quantify the composition of glycol - water based cooling liquids by determining the ethylene-glycol and small organic and inorganic compounds concentration. At elevated temperatures of the cooling system ethylene glycol decomposition to acidic molecules is accelerated, thus the risk for metal surface corrosion increases. Therefore, organic and in-organic compounds are added to the formulation as corrosion inhibitors, each more effective at different kind of metal and at a specific range of concentrations.  Corrosion of the cooling system piping can cause to malfunctions and demand repairs, while the replenishment of the fluid is a much less costly approach, Thus making the cheap and fast monitoring of the cooling fluid to maintenance advantage. We were able to shorten the analysis time from hours to minutes by switching from chromatography to spectroscopy, using individual markers for each material tested. Applying these methods allows us to yield approximated results in no time, which is often the necessity.