EPA TO14A/TO15 – Volatile Organics
EPA TO14 and EPA TO15 are the most commonly used methods for the analysis of volatile organics. EPA TO15 is recently promulgated and will eventually phase out the TO14 method. EPA TO15 provides more detailed QA/QC procedures and allows only for the use of GC/MS as the analytical instrument.
Samples are collected in evacuated stainless steel canisters (SUMMA or SilcoCanTM). Opening the canister valve and allowing the vacuum to rapidly come to equilibrium with the ambient pressure will result in an instantaneous or “grab” air sample, while attaching a flow controller and metering the sample into the canister for a predetermined interval (0.5 to 24 hours) will result in a composite sample.
The samples are pressurized in the laboratory and screened for contaminant levels prior to analysis. The sample is attached to the analytical instrument where it first undergoes a concentration step to achieve the lowest possible detection limits. The desired volume of sample is drawn through a cryogenically cooled glass bead trap using a mass flow controller. The contents of the glass bead trap are then ballistically heated and swept into the GC/MS for analysis. The performance of the method is controlled through the analysis of laboratory control samples, duplicate control samples, method blanks, internal and surrogate standards, and verifiable calibration standards.
Table 1 lists the analytes and reporting limits (RLs) for EPA TO-14A for standard analysis.
Table 2 lists the analytes and reporting limits (RLs) for EPA TO-15 for standard analysis.
Table 3 lists the analytes and reporting limits (RLs) for EPA TO15 for trace analysis.
Table 4 lists the analytes and reporting limits (RLs) for EPA TO15 for ultra trace analysis by SIM.
The analysis of non-target analytes is also available.