This study was designed to investigate effects of relative humidity on the breakthrough of charcoal tubes at a fixed vapor concentration and sampling time during mixed organic vapor sampling. A vapor generator was used to generate three different concentrations of mixed organic vapor and a stainless steel chamber was fabricated and utilized to maintain three different percentages of relative humidity while maintaining a constant temperature.
The results were as follows;
1. At high relative humidity, breakthrough of mixed organic vapor occurred quickly at low vapor concentration than at high vapor concentration because of the reduced adsorption volume of charcoal tube due to humidity.
2. Breakthrough by competitive adsorption of vapors onto charcoal tube was observed at first from n-hexane having the lowest boiling point and highest vapor pressure among the three organic vapors investigated, followed by TCE. No breakthrough was observed from toluene under all experimental conditions.
3. For n-hexane, breakthrough was observed after 2 hours of sampling and breakthrough rates were increased as relative humidity increased. For TCE, breakthrough was found after 3 hours of sampling and breakthrough rates by sampling time were increased as vapor concentration increased.
4. The adsorbed amount of mixed organic vapor at breakthrough was shown to have statistically significant correlations with sampling time, relative humidity, and vapor concentration in descending order of correlation. Relative humidity and sampling time for n-hexane and sampling time and concentration for TCE were both statistically significantly correlated.
5. Relative humidity was found to affect the amount of breakthrough of mixed organic vapor and n-hexane. Among three percentages of relative humidity investigated, the amount of breakthrough at 85 % relative humidity was significantly larger than those of at lower percentages of relative humidity. No statistically significant difference was found between 25 % and 55 % relative humidity.
6. The results of multiple regression analysis between breakthrough and relative humidity, vapor concentrations showed that the coefficient of determination of mixed organic vapor was 0.263 and those of n-hexane and TCE were 0.275 and 0.189, respectively.
7. Flow rates of sampling pumps used were found to be affected by relative humidity present. At 25 %, 55 %, and 85 % relative humidity, the relative errors of sampling pump were 1.4 %, 13.4 %, and 18.6 %, respectively.
In conclusion, the results of this study showed that high relative humidity could reduce the adsorption volume of charcoal tubes and subsequently increase breakthrough rates. Therefore, to prevent breakthrough when sampling mixed organic vapors, it is suggested that either sampling volume be reduced or the flow rate be lowered so as to minimize breakthrough of the most volatile organic vapor in the mixture. In addition, since the flow rates of a sampling pump can be adversely affected by high relative humidity, it is recommended to use a constant flow mode pump when sampling in the highly humid environment.
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