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Technical note : evaluation of a low-cost evaporation protection method for portable water samplers.

von Freyberg, Jana and Knapp, Julia L. A. and Rücker, Andrea and Studer, Bjørn and Kirchner, James W. (2020) 'Technical note : evaluation of a low-cost evaporation protection method for portable water samplers.', Hydrology and earth system sciences., 24 (12). pp. 5821-5834.

Abstract

Automated field sampling of streamwater or precipitation for subsequent analysis of stable water isotopes (2H and 18O) is often conducted with off-the-shelf automated samplers. However, when water samples are stored in the field for days and weeks in open bottles inside autosamplers, their isotopic signatures can be altered by evaporative fractionation and vapor mixing. We therefore designed an evaporation protection method which modifies autosampler bottles using a syringe housing and silicone tube, and we tested whether this method reduces evaporative fractionation and vapor mixing in water samples stored for up to 24 d in 6712 full-size portable samplers (Teledyne ISCO, Lincoln, USA). Laboratory and field tests under different temperature and humidity conditions showed that water samples in bottles with evaporation protection were far less altered by evaporative fractionation and vapor mixing than samples in conventional open bottles. Our design is a cost-efficient approach to upgrade the 1 L sample bottles of the ISCO autosamplers, allowing secure water sample collection in warm and dry environments. Our design can be readily adapted (e.g., by using a different syringe size) to fit the bottles used by many other field autosamplers.

Item Type:Article
Full text:(VoR) Version of Record
Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
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Status:Peer-reviewed
Publisher Web site:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5821-2020
Publisher statement:© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Date accepted:13 October 2020
Date deposited:09 December 2020
Date of first online publication:08 December 2020
Date first made open access:09 December 2020

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