We do a lot of our work at sea on board research vessels. Our laboratory at sea is a custom-built 20 ft container van ( Custom-bilt 20ft container van.pdf, design van.pdf). Thoughts based on our experience using the van.
 
Laboratory
We get seawater samples using a specially constructed rosette system ( Rosette system.pdf TM rosette components, supplier and costs (Feb 2003).pdf Table.pdf) that allows us to collect water without contamination.
 
The bottles from the rosette are carried into our van where we can sub sample them under very clean conditions.
We take the sub samples and determine the concentration of the dissolved trace elements using Flow Injection Analysis (FIA) methods.