Summa can testing

For those of us who are still astounded by all the different tests we run, add another one to your list.  We collect air to test.

That's right.  When it's important to know what volatile organic compounds might be in the air, we collect the air in a SUMMA can, from which all air inside the can is evacuated, generating a vacuum of 30 inches of mercury.   Open the can in a potentially contaminated area and that air is drawn into the canister and trapped for testing at a specialty lab.

Sometimes chemicals that are accidentally released may penetrate the ground as a liquid, but change to their gaseous phase while in the ground.  These volatile (think easily evaporated at normal temperatures) compounds, oftentimes harmful to breathe, can rise up and get trapped inside buildings, where the occupants are exposed.  In order to see if those compounds are present in people's breathing space, we use the SUMMA canisters to collect those air samples.  Use of these canisters in addition to sampling for indoor air quality, vacuum sampling is used for Green Building certification, odor identification, environmental compliance, soil gas, worker exposure and more.

Video:  Summa can testing