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U.S. Department of Energy
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Development of purge and trap with whole-column cryotrapping for the analysis of ground water contaminated with organic compounds. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7067997
A method has been developed for the determination of volatile organic compounds in water. It involves the direct purging of a sample to a fused silica capillary column. As they are purged, the compounds are focused on a DB-624 column using whole-column cryotrapping (WCC). WCC at -90 to -80 C traps all of the purgeable priority pollutant compounds. After purging, the gas chromatography run is started immediately. The purge and whole column cryo-trapping (P/WCC) method is facilitated by the fact that water is relatively non-volatile. Advantages of P/WCC include: simplicity and therefore high reliability; low background contamination since no sorbent traps or multiport valves are needed; no need to retain very volatile compounds on an intermediate trap as in purge and trap; and very short run times.
Research Organization:
Oregon Graduate Center, Beaverton, OR (USA). Dept. of Environmental Science and Engineering
OSTI ID:
7067997
Report Number(s):
PB-90-159245/XAB
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English