I fear that there is nothing as simple as you might hope for. I believe almost every TOC method is based on first converting the sample to CO2 (excluding inorganic material produced CO2 by protocol steps in advance). Then it gets down to detecting CO2.
Some people in the pre-internet days used to do a coulometric titration for CO2, I think. This avoids having a NIR type detector and makes the test a little more ammenable to a "lab-scale" protocol. Check out, for instance,
Do keep in mind that TOC analyses are sold quite cheaply by contract labs. Also keep in mind if you use a contract lab, send a few blanks, use blind labeling and include a few "splits" and standards. Don't buy a cheap analysis but lose the value because you didn't put in quality checks beyond those the lab vendor claims to be using. Caveat emptor, as they tell me the old Romans said.
thanks so much for your response! I am going to try both coulometric titration and send samples for analyses to contract labs and see which is faster and more precise!