You are here:
ANALYTICAL METHOD DEVELOPMENTS TO SUPPORT PARTITIONING INTERWELL TRACER TESTING
Citation:
Bruce, M. L., R. M. Risden, J. Smith, R A. Parker*, W. Kosco, G. Swanson, AND A. M. Tordini. ANALYTICAL METHOD DEVELOPMENTS TO SUPPORT PARTITIONING INTERWELL TRACER TESTING. WTQA 2000 - The 16th Annual Waste Testing & Quality Assurance Symposium Proceedings, Arlington, VA, 8/5-10/00.
Description:
Partitioning Interwell Tracer Testing (PITT) uses alcohol tracer compounds in estimating subsurface contamination from non-polar pollutants. PITT uses the analysis of water samples for various alcohols as part of the overall measurement process. The water samples may contain many dissolved components such as salts, surfactants and acid preservatives that can degrade GC performance if directly injected as is common for most environmental alcohol in water analyses. In addition, analysis of alcohol concentrations below the common 1 mg/L reporting limit (for direct aqueous injection) may also be useful in improving PITT accuracy. USEPA SW-846 Method 5031 (azeotropic distillation) has been successfully modified using a midi-distillation system to separate the tracer alcohol analytes from potential interferences associated with acid preservatives, dissolved salts and surfactants. Recovery of tracer alcohols is generally in the 80-120% range. Azeotropic micro-distillation has also been extended to the high-boiling tracer alcohols to allow tracer analysis at concentrations below 0.1 mg/L. A holding time study demonstrates limited alcohol stability in unpreserved samples. Samples preserved with sulfuric acid have been stable for at least 28 days and up to 59 days in some circumstances.