Development of an Automated System to Measure Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compounds in Groundwater and Soil-Gas: A Tool to Enable Remote Field Monitoring of the Long-Term Migration

The long-term monitoring of groundwater contamination plumes and soil-gas migration to determine the fate of contaminants in the environment is expensive and labor intensive. Current baseline methods have resulted in monitoring programs that collect less data than is required to fully understand the fate and transport mechanisms of the volatile contaminants in groundwater and soil-gas. An automated field-deployable monitoring system using photo-ionization (PIDs) lamps will be developed to monitor volatile chlorinated hydrocarbon concentrations in groundwater and soil-gas. The system will be capable of being deployed and operated in the field at a lower cost than the baseline methods. The Phase I will design and fabricate a sampling system capable of transporting both water and soil-gas samples to a sensor array. The sensor array composed of multiple PIDs will be designed and fabricated to perform an analysis of the chlorinated hydrocarbons. The system will be tested using contaminated groundwater samples. Commercial Activities and other Benefits: The system has application at DOE sites with VOC contaminants (There are six sites with major plumes). The system will decrease monitoring costs, enhance the understanding of the fate of the volatile organics in the environment, and ultimately decrease the cost of groundwater remediation activities.