Like squirrels loads and loads of water samples were collected, analyzed and the boxes stored in the basement in case a re-analysis is necessary. Now with the new sampling season starting, already storage places are piling out and all shelf and cupboards are full with 250 and 20 ml bottles from old projects (20-ml glass vial with cap and additional Teflon/rubber septum) and 250 ml for hydrochemical analyses (250-ml PE bottle with cap): Furka, Rietholzbach, Hotzenwald, Reppisch , or see
Fischer et al. HP 2015,
Fischer et al. HR 2017 or
Fischer et al. JOH 2017 (click link for more info).
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| Storage are piling out ... |
Spring time is also cleaning time. In five steps the full "pizza" boxes were emptied into a big box for transport ( see 1 | loaded with fully to be discarded sample bottles of 20 ml; AxBxC = 40x 42x60 cm ). How many bottles of 15.7 g would be in the box ... (check later on ). In a #$@%$#@ job all caps were removed and disposed (see 2), the water was drained in the sink. All emptied bottles were sorted in a washing rack and submerged into washing basing with deionized water (see 3). The clean bottles were stored in a box, waiting for the drying in a oven at 105 deg C. After drying and cooling down, the clean bottles are packed for storage. Following the five step, 2.5 hours later ... bottles are ready for new water samples and loads of interesting stable isotope data. Only new caps are needed + lots of taxpayers CHF saved :D
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| Five steps to clean bottles :) |
In theory also the caps could be recycled by peeling, in a cumbersome way, the rubber septa from the plastic cap. One reason way using new caps can be seen in the pic below. The broken caps were observed in 50 out of 1510
±20 bottles and most likely caused by screwing the cap too firmly on the sample bottle. Expansion of the water during the warmer summer period and plastic fatigue resulted in a failure of the cap (after +6 years of storage). Hence, nice fractionation. So be careful with caps and long time storage!!!!
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| Broken caps -> fractionation. |
