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Abstract
Portable meters and simplified gas Chromatographic (GC) techniques were investigated for monitoring volatile hydrocarbon (HC), CO2, and O2, concentrations in groundwater, exhaust gases, and soil vapor during in situ remediation using soil vapor extraction (SVE) and air sparging (AS). Results of groundwater samples analyzed in‐house using a headspace technique compared well to split samples analyzed by a certified analytical laboratory (r2 = 0.94). SVE exhaust gas HC and CO2 concentrations measured using a GT201 portable HC/O2 meter and a RA‐411A meter (GasTech), respectively, were highly correlated with in‐house laboratory GC analyses (r2 = 0.91). O2 concentrations fell in a small range and meter analyses were not well correlated with laboratory analyses. Results of soil gas monitoring were not as well correlated as those for exhaust gases for HC, CO2, or O2, perhaps due to environmental conditions such as changes in relative humidity or the wider range of soil gas values. Overall, the meters were good indicators of vapor contamination, they greatly simplified estimates of total HC mass removal, and they allowed estimates of the biological contribution to contaminant removal during the remediation process.