By David Turriff, PhD  and Chris Reitmeyer

This report presents the results from a series of experiments designed to evaluate the bias from storage of soil samples collected for volatile organics in the Disposable En Core® sampler. The study evaluated different soil types against the following storage conditions:

• 48 hours at 4 °C
• 96 hours at 4 °C
• 7 days at 4 °C
• 48 hours at 4 °C and 5 days at -12 °C (7 days total)
• 48 hours at 4 °C and 12 days at -12 °C (14 days total)
• 96 hours at 4 °C and 5 days at -12 °C (7 days total)
• 96 hours at 4 °C and 12 days at -12 °C (14 days total)

The soil types included sterile as well as microbiologically active soils, a variety of soil types, and included controlled spikes into the sampler as well as samples collected from a bulk soil. The results also include split sample results of actual field samples. Finally, the report presents results from multiple laboratories. The report summarizes over 3500 individual data points. The individual results are contained in an appendix.