Rapid Determination of Total Organic Carbon and Its Application to Water Research

The quality of water polluted with organic compounds is usually expressed interms of COD or BOD. Recently, a rapid combustion method for measuring total organic carbon (TOC) content of water was developed. Therefore, the determination of TOC in the river water polluted with organic compounds was attempted and compared with other pollution parameters: BOD, COD, NH4-N, and bacterial counts with the following results. The measurement of TOC was not significantly influenced by the presence of toxic substances, biodegradability, chemical structure, molecular weight of the organic substances or their susceptibility to chemical oxidants. It was found that TOC correlated well with BOD, COD, NH4-N, Kjeldhal-N, and bacterial counts. It was concluded from these results that TOC measurement would provide rapid and accurate analysis of the extent of organic pollution in water.