Evaluation of a portable GC/MS for screening organic contaminants in soil

摘要

In an effort to speed up clearance of building-construction sites in the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground. Maryland, Argonne National Laboratory leased a Bruker Instruments Mobile Environmental Monitor (MEM) to analyze for organics in soils. The MEM is a portable gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS). Argonne's MEM was mounted in a Chevy Blazer and driven to each site of interest. The Bruker analytical system uses a ''probe'' with a thermal devolatilization ring on the end and short GC column inside to permit rapid assessment (via GC/MS) of characteristic fragmentation masses in small samples of soil as soon as they are removed from the ground. Volatiles and semivolatiles can be qualitatively determined with the probe and MS. quantitation of volatiles and semivolatiles is handled by substituting a GC oven (and its contained 30-m-long GC column) for the probe.