Technical note: CO2 is not like CH4 – limits of and corrections to the headspace method to analyse pCO2 in fresh water

Koschorreck, Matthias; Prairie, Yves T.; Kim, Jihyeon; Marcé, Rafael

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1619-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1619-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1619-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

Technical note

|

09 Mar 2021

Technical note |

| 09 Mar 2021

Technical note: CO₂ is not like CH₄ – limits of and corrections to the headspace method to analyse pCO₂ in fresh water

Matthias Koschorreck, Yves T. Prairie, Jihyeon Kim, and Rafael Marcé

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1619-2021-supplement

Model code and software

Rheadspace.R Rafael Marcé https://github.com/icra/headspace

icra/headspace: headspace 1.0.0 (Version headspace) Rafael Marcé https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4577401

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Short summary

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in water samples is often measured using a gas chromatograph. Depending on the chemical composition of the water, this method can produce wrong results. We quantified the possible error and how it depends on water composition and the analytical procedure. We propose a method to correct wrong results by additionally analysing alkalinity in the samples. We provide an easily usable computer code to perform the correction calculations.