Our Planet. Our Priority. Solutions for Environmental Analysis

We help you to reliably and quickly manage high sample loads in accordance with important standards and regulations. We offer application-centric instrument solutions, optimized methods, and comprehensive services.

Solutions at a glance

Precise environmental analysis means more accurate data for better response.

We leave many fatal footprints To address this issue and to better protect our environment and our future, we need precise knowledge about how we are harming our environment.

As a branch of chemical analysis, environmental analysis or environmental monitoring is used for the qualitative and quantitative examination of substances in ambient and indoor air, soil and water or wastewater. Certainly, even the earliest humans took a close look at their environment for safety and health reasons. The first verifiable chemical analysis was dated back to the end of the 18th century, when Berlin chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf examined water for a wide variety of substances. He was later followed by the Englishman Robert Angus Smith, who made a comprehensive rainwater analysis.

Today, many analysis instruments and methods are available for environmental monitoring. Thanks to technological advances, their accuracy is constantly increasing while detection limits are lowered.

For environmental monitoring, the substances to be analyzed are separated using gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, or ion chromatographs. Often samples have to be enriched to increase the relative amount of the substance to be analyzed. Partially, solids need to be extracted with a solvent first. Gaseous samples may only be analyzed after liquid introduction. Additionally, it is often necessary to remove unwanted elements by purification before you can carry out the actual analysis.

Methods such as mass spectrometry, UV/VIS spectroscopy, or atomic absorption spectrometry, are used for the analysis. They help you to determine either individual substances or sum parameters  – depending on the reason for environmental testing, often according to state regulations.

The individual substances analyzed for environmental monitoring include:

• heavy metals such as mercury
• pesticides
• biphenyls
• dioxins
• mineral oil hydrocarbons
• sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
• greenhouse gases
• ozone
• particulate matter

In environmental analysis, also sum parameters are often determined. They combine one or more groups of substances. This makes it relatively easy to record and report pollutants as a compound, such as

• chemical oxygen demand (COD),
• adsorbable organically bound halogens (AOX),
• total organic carbon (TOC),
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)

Environmental analysis with measurement technology trusted by experts

Laboratory managers and their staff, scientists in environmental monitoring, and operaters in private companies such as sewage treatment plants, drinking water suppliers, direct dischargers, waste disposal sites, and recyclers or contract laboratories as well as in governmental test laboratories for environmental monitoring: They all rely on technology developed and provided by Analytik Jena. We support our many customers with expertise and cutting-edge solutions for environmental analysis and monitoring.

The environment and its protection are important to us as a company – “Our Planet. Our Priority” is our guidng principle in environmental analysis This is reflected in a large portfolio of corresponding environmental analyzers and reliably available consumables – provided with comprehensive technological expertise, many years of experience, and first-class service.