Qualitative screening for volatile organic compounds in human blood using solid‐phase microextraction and gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry

Abstract

A fast and simple screening procedure using solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) in full-scan mode for the determination of volatile organic compounds (VOC) is presented. The development of a fast and simple screening technique for the simultaneous determination of various volatiles is of great importance, because of their widespread use, frequent occurrence in forensic toxicological questions and the fact that there is often no hint on involved substances at the crime scene. To simulate a screening procedure, eight VOC with different chemical characteristics were chosen (isoflurane, halothane, hexane, chloroform, benzene, isooctane, toluene and xylene). To achieve maximum sensitivity, variables that influence the SPME process, such as type of fiber, extraction and desorption temperature and time, agitation and additives were optimized by preliminary studies and by means of a central composite design. The limits of detection and recoveries ranged from 2.9 microg/l (xylene) to 37.1 microg/l (isoflurane) and 7.9% (chloroform) to 61.5% (benzene), respectively. This procedure can be used to answer various forensic and toxicological questions. The short time taken for the whole analytical procedure may make its eventual adoption for routine analysis attractive.

Evaluation of matrix effects in the analysis of volatile organic compounds in whole blood with solid‐phase microextraction

“…The only compound tested in our study within this range was furan, which gave quantitative recoveries without dilution (89%). Gottzein et al obtained recoveries of <62% when analyzing eight VOCs using 1:2 dilution (boiling points ranging from 49 to 144°C). De Martinis et al used a 1:5 dilution to analyze ethanol in blood but no recovery rates are reported.…”

“…This technique has great potential for use in clinical medicine . HS‐SPME followed by GC–MS is currently the most common method for the analysis of VOCs in blood samples and LODs at nanogram per liter levels are obtained without foaming problems . SPME is highly efficient in the determination of organic analytes in relatively simple aqueous matrices such as natural waters and wastewaters in both immersion and HS‐sampling mode.…”

“…Absolute recoveries usually obtained with SPME from biological matrices are much lower than those obtained from aqueous solutions . Therefore, this matrix effect must be compensated for in order to obtain reliable quantitative results.…”

Multi-Component Profiling of Trace Volatiles in Blood by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry with Dynamic Headspace Extraction

“…41) As shown in a previous report, the recovery rates of volatiles were di erent between SPME and DHS. For example, in contrast to the low recovery rate for toluene for HS-SPME, 46.2%, 42) the recovery rate for toluene was as high as 95% for DHS. erefore, the above ndings demonstrated that various volatiles can be analyzed simultaneously at nanogram levels by improving the sample loading volume of the DHS method.…”

Identification of Characteristic Volatile Organic Compounds Released during the Decomposition Process of Human Remains and Analogues

“…Over four hundred compounds were identified from literature review [24,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][120][121][122][123][145][146][147][148][149][150] and compiled into a spreadsheet referred to as the DecompositionAssociated Compound Database (Appendix). All the compounds were classified by their chemical functional group and listed from lowest to highest boiling points.…”