Rapid Field Analytical Methods for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons

SYNOPSIS

In this paper, Chevron companies discusses the requirement for rapid analysis of TPH. They then performed pilot studies to compare various types of field test equipment with laboratory by GC (USEPA 8015). It describes the pros and cons of each rapid method for field application.

• “The rapid, portable IR device (RemScan) provided TPH results that correlated well with Standard GC results at different concentration levels”. ​“The results showed excellent agreement between the handheld IR (RemScan) Instrument predictions and lab GC-FID data”.
• “The advantage of the rapid IR method (RemScan) is that soil samples do not have to be extracted with a solvent, so no chemical waste is generated”.
• “The rapid IR method (RemScan) provides TPH results in a few minutes rather than in days or weeks”.
• The graphs shows that RemScan provides much better accuracy than the other methods.
• Conclusion was: ​“Both FTK‑2 and portable infrared instrument (RemScan) can be used as quantitative analytical tools deployed in the field for TPH measurements at oil field sites in Sumatra”. The FTK‑2 can be used in laboratory whereas RemScan can be used in the field. ​“With the addition of the field analytical method, the sampling density can be significantly increased. This will results in a higher spatial resolution of the sampling grid and more precise delineation of hot spots”.
• Based on this paper, Chevron chose to scale-up use of RemScan at their remediation site.