Industrial Test Systems Inc. Arsenic CheckTM Field Test Kit

This U.S.-made arsenic field test kit provides an easy method to test for aqueous inorganic arsenic. This method requires no electricity and no refrigeration. The detection range is from 0 to 800 ug/L, with the most reliable range between 5 to 100 ug/L. The upper detection limit can be extended to 4000 ug/L with a 1 to 5 dilution. Components supplied in this kit include a detailed description of the test method, a color chart, three chemical reagents with material safety data sheets, three measuring spoons for the reagents, test strips, two reaction bottles, four bottle caps, a thermometer, and a zip-loc test strips disposal bag.

The chemistry of the reaction is based on the conversion of inorganic arsenic compounds in water to arsine gas (AsH3) by the reaction with zinc dust and tartaric acid . The test results are determined by colorimetry. The color chart is standardized at 25°C, starting at pure white for 0 ug/L arsenic, a tint of yellow for 5 ug/L arsenic, to slightly more yellow at 10 ug/L, and increasing yellow intensity at 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 ug/L. At 500 ug/L arsenic, the color is dark brown. It is recommended that the water sample temperature be between 20°C and 30°C for accurate reading off the color chart. This test tolerates up to 2 ug/L hydrogen sulfide and 0.5 ug/L antimony without test result interference. No interference from iron or sulfate was found. There are 100 tests per kit, selling at $120 per kit.

A test was performed as part of the thesis study by Tommy Ngai in 2002 to determine the accuracy of this field test kit . Results on 23 split-samples showed the test kit results agreed with the MIT GFAAS results 78% of the time, which is fairly good. It is therefore assumed that the ITS test kit results are dependable and accurate.