A Study on the Adsorption Capture-Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds in Forests

Abstract

Phytoncide, a forest healing indicator, is known to help suppress depression, anxiety, and stress of human. Furthermore, it has positive effects on blood pressures, pulses, and mood fluctuations. Previous studies mostly focused on phytoncide emission trends and its concentration prediction in forest. Moreover, a direct comparison of phytoncide concentrations between existing studies is often challenging owing to the use of differingunits, target analytes, analysis conditions, as well as unreported concentrations per type of the compound. Therefore, this study evaluated the overall performance of adsorption sampling and thermal desorption coupled with gas chromatography to evaluatethe phytoncide concentration in a forest atmosphere. To this end, the analysis quality management and analysis accuracy were evaluated for on-site samples in two different laboratories. The phytoncide analysis results obtained from each laboratory can serve as reference data for the adsorption capture-thermal desorption method applied to biogenic volatile organic compounds.