Advancements in Pipe Monolith Lysimeter Designs

摘要

The self-contained field lysimeter, patented by ABC Laboratories, Inc. (U.S. Patent # 5,594, 185) has been used to test the mobility and dissipation of various agrochemicals in a variety of field sites and soil types. In this paper we present data to support the functionality of the pipe lysimeter design and describe some recent design modifications that have been made to improve its performance. The previous design, presented at the ASTM Eighth Symposium on Environmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment, Atlanta, Georgia, April 1998, used a steel soil core casing, which for some test substances could result in unwanted wall sorption or catalyzed degradation. The use of a stainless steel core casing, while generally considered to be inert for most test substances, can become very expensive, increasing the overall cost of the field project. For these reasons, the modular lysimeter design was modified to allow the use of PVC and other non-metallic soil core casing materials.