Monitoring final mill effluent by TOC (Total Organic Carbon)

This paper reports on the first stage of a project examining whether on-line TOC (Total Organic Carbon) analysis is appropriate for continuous monitoring of treated sugar mill effluent discharge. the first stage was an investigation of the relationship between TOC and BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) of sugar mill final effluent. Weekly snap samples were collected from all mills during the 1994 crushing season and analysed at SRI for both BOD and TOC. The BOD was generally almost double the TOC for treated effluent. The constancy of these results was sufficiently encouraging to proceed to the next stage of the project, which is installation of the TOC analyser in a sugar mill for the 1995 crushing season for continuously monitoring treated effluent discharge.