Intercomparison of oxygenated volatile organic compound measurements at the SAPHIR atmosphere simulation chamber

The intercomparison was conducted blind at the large (270 m³) simulation chamber, Simulation of Atmospheric Photochemistry in a Large Reaction Chamber (SAPHIR), in Jülich, Germany. Fifteen analytical instruments, representing a wide range of techniques, were challenged with measuring atmospherically relevant OVOC species and toluene (14 species, C₁ to C₇) in the approximate range of 0.5 - 10 ppbv under three different conditions: (1) OVOCs with no humidity or ozone, (2) OVOCs with humidity added (r.h. ≈ 50%), and (3) OVOCs with ozone (≈60 ppbv) and humidity (r.h. ≈ 50%).

The SAPHIR chamber proved to be an excellent facility for conducting this experiment. Measurements from individual instruments were compared to mixing ratios calculated from the chamber volume and the known amount of OVOC injected into the chamber. Benzaldehyde and 1-butanol, compounds with the lowest vapor pressure of those studied, presented the most overall difficulty because of a less than quantitative transfer through some of the participants' analytical systems.