Refinery effluent analysis methodologies for relevant parameters from EU-regulatory regimes

Report no. 4/13: This report provides guidance to CONCAWE members on the analytical methods that might be used to monitor oil refinery effluents for those refinery-specific parameters covered by relevant European legislation and a comparison of the methods that are used today, as reported in the last Effluent Survey.

A method assessment programme is presented whereby the performance of methods of analysis (used to monitor oil refinery effluents) can be compared and prioritised in order of their analytical performance capabilities. Methods for a specific parameter, which is clearly and unambiguously defined, are compared with each other and then prioritised in terms of their overall quality.

The quality of these methods is based on an assessment of a combination of characteristic features, namely, precision, bias or recovery, limit of detection (where appropriate), indicative costs, and ease of use. Ranking scores for each feature are assigned to various ranges of each feature, and then added together to give an overall ranking value. The method exhibiting the lowest overall ranking value is deemed the most appropriate method for analysing that parameter.