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<p>Atmospheric trace gas measurements of greenhouse gases are critical in their precision and accuracy. In the past 5 years, atmospheric measurement and gas metrology communities have turned their attention to possible surface effects due to pressure and temperature variations during a standard cylinder's lifetime. This study concentrates on this issue by introducing newly built small-volume aluminum and steel cylinders which enable the investigation of trace gases and their affinity for adsorption and desorption on various surfaces over a set of temperature and pressure ranges. The presented experiments are designed to test the filling pressure dependencies up to 30&thinsp;bar and temperature dependencies from <span class="inline-formula">−10</span>&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">^∘</span>C up to 180&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">^∘</span>C for these prototype cylinders. We present measurements of <span class="inline-formula">CO₂</span>, <span class="inline-formula">CH₄</span>, CO and <span class="inline-formula">H₂O</span> using a cavity ring-down spectroscopy analyzer under these conditions. Moreover, we investigated <span class="inline-formula">CO₂</span> amount fractions using a novel quantum cascade laser spectrometer system enabling measurements at pressures as a low as 5&thinsp;mbar. This extensive dataset revealed that for absolute pressures down to 150&thinsp;mbar the enhancement in the amount fraction of <span class="inline-formula">CO₂</span> relative to its initial value (at 1200&thinsp;mbar absolute) is limited to 0.12&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">µ</span>mol&thinsp;mol<span class="inline-formula">⁻¹</span> for the prototype aluminum cylinder. Up to 80&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">^∘</span>C, the aluminum cylinder showed superior results and less response to varying temperature compared to the steel cylinder. For <span class="inline-formula">CO₂</span>, these changes were insignificant at 80&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">^∘</span>C for the aluminum cylinder, whereas a 0.11&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">µ</span>mol&thinsp;mol<span class="inline-formula">⁻¹</span> enhancement for the steel cylinder was observed. High-temperature experiments showed that for both cylinders irreversible temperature effects occur especially above 130&thinsp;<span class="inline-formula">^∘</span>C.</p>