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PERFORMANCE EVALUATION MATERIALS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VOLATILE ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS IN SOILS: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT
Citation:
Lewis, T., B. Deason, C. Ferlach, AND D. Bottrell. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION MATERIALS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VOLATILE ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS IN SOILS: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-90/226.
Description:
During an evaluation of field portable gas chromatographs (GC), site-specific performance evaluation materials (PEM) were prepared and used as quality control samples. lean soils from two contaminated sites were spiked with various volatile organic compounds. he PEM were shipped to the field via air carrier and analyzed by GC. he samples were also shipped back to the laboratory and analyzed as double blind samples on a GC and a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) samples which were held in the laboratory without being shipped were also analyzed. or GC analyses a static headspace method revealed highly variable recoveries for both shipped and unshipped PEM. n operationally- defined headspace calibration was used to quantitate the amount of analyte remaining in the soil at various holding times and under various shipment scenarios. he influence of soil characteristics and volatile compound properties and the effects of holding time and shipping on analyte stability in actual and spiked soils are discussed.