Bangkhunprom , Phranakorn Bangkok, Thailand

Improving water use efficiency

A Picarro L2140-i cavity ring-down spectrometer was operated with the following configuration: an A0325 liquid autosampler for injection into an A0211 vaporizer coupled to an A0214 micro-combustion module (MCM) which itself was coupled to the L2140-i. The L2140-i and the A0211 both utilized A2000 diaphragm vacuum pumps (Vacuubrand no. MD1). The autosampler was equipped with a 10 µL syringe (Trajan no. 002982) that was manually cleaned between sequences using N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP, Fisher no. AC390680010) by lubricating the plunger from the top of the syringe barrel with NMP, actuating the plunger carefully until smooth movement was achieved, removing the plunger, submerging the plunger in NMP, wiping the plunger with a cellulose wipe, reinstalling the plunger and repeatedly aspirating the NMP, and repeating the same process using deionized water. No solvent rinsing was performed between injections; however each sample injection cycle dispensed two 1.8 µL aliquots to waste prior to a 1.8 µL injection. The vaporizer used a 9.5 mm general purpose blue septum (Trajan no. 0418240) that was replaced after each sequence. The MCM requires a dry-air carrier to perform combustion, which was delivered using a cylinder of zero air (Airgas no. AI Z300). The MCM contains a catalytic cartridge (Picarro no. C0345) that ensures complete combustion of organics and that must be regularly replaced. When operating the instrument with the MCM off, the MCM was always set to warm in order to prevent condensation of sample vapor within the MCM flow path. Fused insert vials (Thermo Fisher no. 03FISV) were used for all injections, which were filled to 200 µL of their ∼ 300 µL nominal (∼ 400 µL actual) volume and sealed with silicone and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) septum caps (LEAP PAL Parts no. 009-13-8353) following Schauer et al. (2016).