A Study on Optimal Combination of Adsorbents for Sampling of C4-C10 Hydrocarbons in Ambient Air and Analysis with Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Coupled with Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS)

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the sampling performance and analytical methodology for the measurement of hydrocarbons in ambient air. Usually C4-C10 hydrocarbons are determined with adsorbent tube sampling and automatic thermal desorption gas chromatography coupled with mass detector (GC/MS). In this study we determined 56 compounds including hazardous air pollutants such as, benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylenes, 1,3-butadiene and halogenated hydrocarbons, etc. The methodology was investigated with a wide range of different adsorbents which are commercially available and frequently adopted for the volatile organic compounds measurement. From four adsorbents are tested which are three carbon-based adsorbents such as, carbograph 2TD, carbograph 1TD and carbopack X and one polymer-based adsorbent (Tenax TA). We compare the efficiencies of the single adsorbent and multiple adsorbents with respect to volatile organic compounds adsorption. The results indicates that the most suitable combination for C4-C10 hydrocarbon measurements is triple adsorbent tube containing carbograph 2TD, carbograph 1TD and carbopack X. This method was found to be well suitable for the sampling of a broad range of volatile organic compounds in ambient air compare to the traditional methods. The sampling performance was evaluated with respect to the safe sampling volume of volatile organic compounds with a single adsorbent and multiple adsorbents for standard and field samples.

Occurrence and Concentrations of Toxic VOCs in the Ambient Air of Gumi, an Electronics-Industrial City in Korea

“…As a result, a total of 67 compounds were determined for the second campaign. A self-manufactured spiking apparatus [ 30 , 31 ] was used to prepare the standard samples by spiking known amounts of the gas standard mixture into pre-conditioned tubes. The liquid standard samples were prepared by spiking the standard into cleaned adsorbent tubes using a packed column injector ofthe GC at 250 °C and a helium flow rate of 100 mL/min [ 32 ].…”

“…The method detection limits (MDLs) for each target VOC were evaluated according to the USEPA guidelines [ 34 ], and the MDLs were estimated to be 0.01~0.05 ppb, depending on the individual compounds. More details on the performance of the VOC sampling and analytical methods used in this study can be found elsewhere [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Until now, no standard reference materials (SRM) are available for VOC samples.…”