Applicability of an electronic nose for detection of volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons in soil

• Published in: Huanjing kexue Vol. 32; no. 12; p. 3641
• Main Authors: Bu, Fan-Yang, Wen, Xiao-Gang, Wan, Mei, Liu, Rui, Cai, Qiang, Chen, Lü-Jun, Zhang, Yong-Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Chinese
• Published: China 01-12-2011
• Subjects: Electronic Nose; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Equipment Design; Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated - analysis; Soil - analysis; Soil Pollutants - analysis; Tetrachloroethylene - analysis; Trichloroethylene - analysis; Volatile Organic Compounds - analysis
• ISSN: 0250-3301

An electronic nose principally composed of a photo ionization detector (PID) was developed for rapid detection of volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons (VCHs) in contaminated soil. Removal of interference gas such as benzene homologues with a pre-filtration tube was analyzed with gas chromatography (GC). A standard gas generator was applied to generate different concentrations of perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE) gas, with which the determine precision and reproducibility of the electronic nose were evaluated by comparison with GC. Finally, simulated contamination soil with three typical paddy soils in Yangtze river delta region were used for ventilation purification experiments, the change of VCHs concentrations in the ventilation gas was monitored, based on which the applicability of the electronic nose was evaluated for on-line detection of the on-going of the ventilation purification process. Results showed that a halogenated hydrocarbon RAE-SEP tube was effective to remove interference gas,