In the last decades, there is more awareness on the impact on human health of pollutants emitted during cooking processes, both from commercial and from domestic activities. In this study, a new method exploiting solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) was developed to analyse the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted during cooking. The air above the cooking plate was sampled using a polyethylene terephthalate olfactometric bag that allows to transport the sample to the instrument location and to perform the SPME extraction of the sampled air. The efficiency of different extraction systems and different extraction times (1, 8, 16, and 24 h) was evaluated in order to obtain sufficient sensitivity. Thus, the proposed system, combining the use of olfactometric bags and SPME-GC-MS, was applied for the first time to study VOCs emitted during cooking allowing to perform the analysis, even on samples produced in sites far from the instrument location, in an easy way and with instrumentations available in most of laboratories. Then, the method was applied to assess the efficiency of odour filters used in common kitchen hoods, using deep frying of potatoes in sunflower oil as cooking model system. VOCs were analysed in the air before and after passage through the filter, calculating then percentages of dejection for the different classes of VOCs that resulted to be in the range 31-77%. K E Y W O R D S deep fat frying, kitchen hood odour filter, polyethylene terephthalate olfactometric bag, solidphase microextraction-gas chromatography, volatile organic compounds 1 | INTRODUCTION Both outdoor and indoor air pollution is a global environmental problem that primarily affects the health of the urban population. Over the past decades, different changes in building materials, indoor consumer goods and people habits increased the levels of indoor air pollution. Several studies demonstrated that repeated and prolonged exposure to atmospheric environmental pollutants could increase the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and lung cancer. Pollutants in closed environments mainly include nitrogen oxides (NO x), carbon oxides (CO and CO 2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matters (PM). 1,2 Furthermore, indoor levels of VOCs, which are classified as organic compounds that have boiling point between 50 C and 260 C, exceed often outdoor levels from two to five times. 3,4 Additionally, nowadays people, especially in developed countries, spend most of their time (>80%) indoor, 5 prolonging their exposure to possible dangerous pollutants.
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