TOC versus UV spectrophotometry for wastewater quality monitoring

Total organic carbon (TOC) is one of the most important parameter for the knowledge of water and wastewater quality, because it concerns theoretically all organic compounds. Unfortunately, some restrictions with respect to TOC measurement must be considered, explaining that alternative procedures have been envisaged, among which UV spectrophotometry. Starting from a comparison of results between high temperature digestion and UV photo-oxidation techniques for some specific compounds and real wastewater samples, the work shows the complementary interest of using UV spectrophotometry either directly (with multiwavelength procedures) or after UV photo-oxidation.