Field-Portable Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Notice The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its Office of Research and Development (ORD), funded and managed, under Interagency Agreement No. DW89936700-01-0 with the U.S. Department of Energy=s Sandia National Laboratory, the verification effort described in this document. This report has received both technical peer and administrative policy reviews and has been approved for publication as an EPA document. Mention of corporate names, trade names, or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Environmental Technology Verification Program (ETV) to facilitate the deployment of innovative environmental technologies through performance verification and information dissemination. The goal of the ETV Program is to further environmental protection by substantially accelerating the acceptance and use of improved and cost-effective technologies. The ETV Program is intended to assist and inform those involved in the design, distribution, permitting, and purchase of environmental technologies. Under this program, in partnership with recognized testing organizations, and with the full participation of the technology developer, the EPA evaluates the performance of innovative technologies by developing demonstration plans, conducting field tests, collecting and analyzing the demonstration results, and preparing reports. The testing is conducted in accordance with rigorous quality assurance protocols to ensure that data of known and adequate quality are generated and that the results are defensible. The EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory, in cooperation with Sandia National Laboratories, the testing organization, evaluated field-portable systems for monitoring chlorinated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in water. This verification statement provides a summary of the demonstration and results for the Inficon HAPSITE field-portable gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) system. DEMONSTRATION DESCRIPTION The field demonstration of the HAPSITE portable GC/MS was held in September 1997. The demonstration was designed to assess the instrument's ability to detect and measure chlorinated volatile organic compounds in groundwater at two contaminated sites: the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, near Aiken, South Carolina, and the McClellan Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California. Groundwater samples from each site were supplemented with performance evaluation (PE) samples of known composition. Both sample types were used to assess instrument accuracy, precision, sample throughput, and comparability to reference laboratory results. The primary target compounds at the Savannah River Site were trichloroethene and tetrachloroethene. At McClellan Air iii Force Base, the target compounds were trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, 1,2-dichloroethane, 1,1,2­ trichloroethane, 1,2-dichloropropane, and trans-1,3-dichloropropene. These sites were chosen because they contain varied concentrations of …