Obituary: Dr Tom Palin
June 2006
Dr Tom Palin, creator of the Palintest system of water testing, has died aged 89. A resident of Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Dr Palin was awarded an OBE for his work on water chemistry, and pioneered the DPD method of chlorine testing which is now used worldwide.
Dr. Palin's early experience in water quality testing and control was gained in the service of what was then the London Midland & Scottish Railway Company. This work entailed the supervision of the water supplies to a number of large railway towns in the United Kingdom, down to such miscellaneous jobs as checking the purity of the water supply to the Royal Train.
In 1940 he was appointed first waterworks chemist to the City of Coventry to supervise the wartime operation of emergency water supply. The treatment problems in converting contaminated raw water sources, described as having lethal potentialities, into drinkable water stimulated his interest in the application of new and safer methods of water treatment. Although the water supply system at Coventry was extensively damaged by enemy bombing on many occasions at no time did consumers suffer harm from contaminated water since the purity and wholesomeness of the public supply was maintained at all times.
In view of this challenge to achieve the highest possible quality standards it is not surprising that the first application in the United Kingdom of such novel treatments as breakpoint chlorination, already in limited use at that time in the United States, should have taken place in Coventry. Now, some 60 years later, it is widely practised throughout the world.
While the practical benefits afforded by breakpoint chlorination in giving better and faster disinfection of water and other quality improvements were, in those early days, already becoming well established, little was known about the chemical reactions involved in this breakpoint phenomenon; and on a practical level there was a need for more reliable control tests.
It was this need for a greater understanding of the process that triggered off Dr. Palin's classic work on chlorination chemistry. This included the development of new test procedures including the first practical method for the separate determination of free chlorine, monochloramine, dichloramine and nitrogen trichloride all of which may, under certain conditions, be found in chlorinated water. It was the availability of the right analytical methods, using the indicator diethyl?para?phenylene diamine (DPD), that provided the key to the explanation of the breakpoint in chlorination and laid the foundation for the present classification of modern processes. With this new knowledge and means of control, chlorination could be applied to water supplies and to swimming pools to give maximum efficiency in disinfection with minimum production of unwanted side effects such, as, for example, objectionable tastes and odours in drinking water and obnoxious compounds in swimming pool water able to cause eye irritation.
In 1945 Dr Palin became the first Chief Chemist and Bacteriologist to the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company with the job of establishing a scientific department with laboratories for research and development.
It became evident to Dr. Palin that outside the laboratory there was a need for a simple reliable system of routine water testing suitable for use by works operators upon whose constant vigilance and devotion to duty the safety of the public water supply so much depends. This system is based upon the use of standardized test tablets and these are applicable to the treatment control of potable water, swimming pools, sewages and effluents, boiler waters and industrial waters of all types.
Wilkinson & Simpson, now Palintest Ltd, contributed to the development of the tablet tests and in 1960 were granted an exclusive licence to manufacture and market the Palintest System of water testing.
Dr. Palin retired from his position with Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company in 1977 and joined the Palintest Board. That year saw the inauguration by the company of a new River Tyne Abstraction Scheme. Included in the scheme were new central laboratories which were named the Palin Laboratories “in acknowledgement of the outstanding contribution to the company and the Water Service made by Dr A T Palin.”
The DPD method is now the international standard method for the measurement of free chlorine and combined chlorine residuals. In addition it is applicable to the determination of other residuals such as chlorine dioxide, bromine, iodine and ozone.
Further recognition of Dr Palin’s work came in the Honours list of 1975 when he was appointed OBE. At the American Water Works Association conference of 1979 he was made an Honorary Member. He was an official advisor to the Standard Methods Committee of the American Water Works Association, and an active member of several of its joint task groups and the Research and Water Quality Disinfection committees. His contributions to the technical literature have appeared in Canada, Japan, Spain, France, Germany, USA and the UK. He held a first class degree from London University, and was awarded a PhD for his chlorination researches. He received a Gold Medal at the Public Works Congress of 1950 in London. His work on fluoridation control methods led to his being awarded the Houston Medal of the Institution of Water Engineers for work of outstanding merit. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.