FAST SCREENING OF CONTAMINATED SOIL SAMPLES USING THERMAL-DESORPTION MASS-SPECTROMETRY

A fast analysis technique for the determination of oil concentrations in soil and sediment samples is described and validated. The so-called thermal desorption mass spectrometry combination (TD-MS) proved to be a very rapid analytical method for mineral oil in soil. When compared to a soxhlet extraction and to the standard method of analysis, the latter yielded significantly different results compared to the other two methods, while the results from TD-MS and soxhlet extraction did not differ significantly from each other. Of the three methods TD-MS yielded the lowest variance for multiple analyses. Total time for the analysis of a wet soil sample was 20 min, including sample preparation.