Recommissioning your Mercury CEMS

Depending on the age of your mercury CEMS, you may need to perform some system upgrades for compliance and optimization. Refer to the chart below to determine where your Thermo Scientific™ Mercury Freedom System falls within the 2015 compliance guidelines:

What results are you seeing with your quarterly linearity, weekly integrity and daily calibration checks? You may be seeing active alarms or your mercury generator may not be certified NIST-traceable. If you're concerned about your current performance, you have a few options. Check out the Mercuric Chloride Generator Technical Bulletin for troubleshooting issues such as low total efficiency, slow recovery, and when the oxidizer baseline differs from the system span value. Contact our Technical Support team to walk through a system integrity check over the phone. Or schedule an appointment for Field Service to visit your site, evaluate your system and get it up and running like new.

There is a correlation between preventative maintenance and performance issues, so a regular and thorough maintenance schedule is recommended. Calibration failures, system not zeroing properly, or excessive response time could mean the system is not performing well due to probe malfunction. All Thermo Scientific™ probes come with our initial manufacturer's warranty and our service teams are available to help with probe assessment and purchase options, such as the Thermo Scientific™ Model 83i probe which was specifically designed for monitoring mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, cement plants, and waste incinerators.

It's worth paying close attention to how you use and clean your umbilical. If there's a question about whether or not to use aggressive cleaning fluids such as nitric acid, check the umbilical manufacturer's recommendation. Ensure the wire gauge in the umbilical is suitable for probe and stinger heaters (applicable to Mercury Freedom Systems which incorporate probes that are not Model 83i and 83i-GC probes). Be aware other probes may draw a higher current exceeding the rating of the system's umbilical wiring. If you haven't already installed your umbilical, be sure to hang it properly and use the manufacturer's recommended mechanical fasteners, clamps and grips to avoid premature failure. Inspect your umbilical line for low points which can cause condensation or cleaning solution to become trapped, leading to increased system response time.

Using the iPort software, the onboard software interface for Thermo Scientific™ iSeries gas analyzers, a great deal of information concerning system performance is accessible. Many operators use this data for troubleshooting, however if you decide to contact Technical Support, the iPort software records (commonly referred to as LRECs) are good to have on hand.

To download the data records, follow these steps:

1. Go to Preferences and check Raw Flags
2. Go to Instrument from the main menu and select Load Records
3. Select number of records and select Long Records
4. Make sure to check the "Save to File" checkbox
5. Click OK

Next Month's Topic: Mercury Monitoring: Compliance vs. Process Control