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FIELD ANALYTICAL SCREENING PROGRAM: PCP METHOD - INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION REPORT
Citation:
Hess, E. AND D. Hamilton. FIELD ANALYTICAL SCREENING PROGRAM: PCP METHOD - INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION REPORT. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/540/R-95/528.
Description:
This innovative technology evaluation report (ITER) presents information on the demonstration of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7 Superfund Field Analytical Screening Program (FASP) method for determining pentachlorophenol (PCP) contamination in soil and water. his method was demonstrated in Morrisville, North Carolina, in August 1993. he FASP PCP Method was developed by the EPA Superfund Branch for use at Superfund sites. he method uses a gas chromatograph (GC) equipped with a megabore capillary column and either a flame ionization detector (FID) or an electron capture detector (ECD). as chromatography is an EPA-approved method for determining PCP concentrations in soil, water, and waste samples. he FASP PCP Method is an abbreviated, modified version of approved methods. oil and water samples require extraction before GC analysis. o remove interferences caused by petroleum hydrocarbons, an acid-base partition cleanup step is used during the FASP PCP Method. he FASP PCP Method was found to be field-portable only in a mobile laboratory, must be done in a temperature-controlled environment, and requires a skilled chemist for operation. he detection limit reported by this method for is 0.8 part per million for soil samples and 1.0 part per billion for water samples. RC used linear regression and inferential statistics to compare the method's data to that from the confirmatory laboratory. hen the data sets were evaluated as a whole, the FASP PCP Method did not perform well. owever, the demonstration's samples were collected from two different sites, and the method was found to have performed well on samples from the site where petroleum hydrocarbons had not been used as a carrier solvent. his indicates that the problems with the method may have been due to the petroleum hydrocarbons in the soil. he water analysis portion of this demonstration produced similar results.