Soil quality — Determination of content of hydrocarbon in the range C10 to C40 by gas chromatography.
Get more information about the standard at ISO 16703:2004.
Facts about the ISO 16703 Standard Test Method
ISO 16703 is used for the determination of mineral hydrocarbons in field-moist soil, since methods depending on a ozone-depleting substances (e.g. CFCs) as solvents were withdrawn. Similar to ISO 9377-2 it is based on the extraction with a CFC-free solvent followed by a clean up step and a gas chromatography measurement. Again, it is only capable of determining hydrocarbons with a boiling point between 175°C to 525°C, using n-decane (C10H22) and n-tetracontane (C40H82) as marker substance. With this standard it is not possible to detect hydrocarbons smaller than n-decane.
eracheck allows to use a simillar sample preparation, when cyclohexane is used as solvent and the following analyses can be compared with ASTM D7678, which is based on an infrared measurement and reducing the measurement time compared to GC. A good correlation between the ISO 16703 and the results provided by the eracheck can be expected.