Macherey-Nagel test strips for dissolved zinc, in one presentation.
91310
A semi-quantitative test strip for dissolved zinc. Dip it, wait the stated time, and compare the pad against the colour scale on the tube.
Zinc in water usually comes from galvanised pipe giving way, or from a cooling system whose corrosion inhibitor is zinc-based. Either way the reading tells you about the state of the metal, not just the water.
A strip gives a range, not a figure. That is enough for the great majority of decisions — dose or do not dose, discharge or hold, keep running or stop — and it gives the answer where the sample is, in about a minute, with no instrument to calibrate and nothing to carry back to a laboratory.
When a number has to be defensible — a regulatory report, a dispute, a limit you are close to — a photometer or a laboratory method is the right tool. The strip's job is to tell you whether you need one.
Rising zinc in a building's water is worth investigating: galvanised pipe fails from the inside and zinc is the first sign.
Supplied in one presentation.