Near Surface Soil Vapor Clusters for Monitoring Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds from Soils

Near Surface Soil Vapor Clusters for Monitoring Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds from Soils

The overall objective of this research was to develop and test a method of determining emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other gases from soil surfaces. Soil vapor clusters (SVCs) were designed as a low dead volume, robust sampling system to obtain vertically resolved profiles...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association (1995) Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 118 - 124
Main Authors: Ergas, Sarina J., Hinlein, Erich S., Reyes, Paul O., Ostendorf, David W., Tehrany, J. Pierre
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Pittsburgh, PA Taylor & Francis Group 01-01-2000
Air & Waste Management Association
Subjects:
Air Pollutants - analysis
Algorithms
Applied sciences
Atmospheric pollution
Dispersed sources and other
Exact sciences and technology
Hazardous Waste - analysis
Models, Theoretical
Pollution
Pollution sources. Measurement results
Soil Pollutants - analysis
New York
United States
North America
America
Biodegradation
Aspiration
Emission content
Volatile organic compound
Helium
Soil pollution
Pollutant emission
Modeling
Flux density
Decontamination
Surveillance
Chlorine Organic compounds
Chlorocarbon
Air pollution
Air ground interface
Bioremediation
Emission measure
Ethylene(trichloro)
Tracers
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Summary:The overall objective of this research was to develop and test a method of determining emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other gases from soil surfaces. Soil vapor clusters (SVCs) were designed as a low dead volume, robust sampling system to obtain vertically resolved profiles of soil gas contaminant concentrations in the near surface zone. The concentration profiles, when combined with a mathematical model of porous media mass transport, were used to calculate the contaminant flux from the soil surface. Initial experiments were conducted using a mesoscale soil remediation system under a range of experimental conditions. Helium was used as a tracer and trichloroethene was used as a model VOC. Flux estimations using the SVCs were within 25% of independent surface flux estimates and were comparable to measurements made using a surface isolation flux chamber (SIFC). In addition, method detection limits for the SVC were an order of magnitude lower than detection limits with the SIFC. Field trials, conducted with the SVCs at a bioventing site, indicated that the SVC method could be easily used in the field to estimate fugitive VOC emission rates. Major advantages of the SVC method were its low detection limits, lack of required auxiliary equipment, and ability to obtain realtime estimates of fugitive VOC emission rates.
ISSN:1096-2247
2162-2906
DOI:10.1080/10473289.2000.10463983