title: Determination of gaseous carbonyl compounds by their pentafluorophenyl hydrazones with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.
abstract: A sensitive and reliable method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of 20 airborne carbonyl compounds in the C(1)-C(10) range. The carbonyls were collected onto solid sorbent coated with pentafluorophenyl hydrazine (PFPH), followed by solvent extraction and gas chromatographic (GC)/mass spectrometric (MS) analysis of the PFPH derivatives. The sorbent is packed into two separate sections in a glass sampling tube. The two-section design allows convenient checking of collection efficiency and breakthrough. The sampling tube, with a coating amount of 971 nmol PFPH per 100 mg Tenax TA and operated at a sampling flow rate of 80 mL min(-1), collects the 20 carbonyls with efficiencies above 95%. Hexane extracts the collected carbonyls in their PFPH derivatives in the sampling tube with better than 95% extraction efficiency. It is necessary to let the sampling tube sit at ambient temperature for 3 days before solvent extraction to ensure complete derivatization of the carbonyls. The limits of detection (LODs) of the tested carbonyls are in the range of 3.7-11.6 ng per sample. The method has been field-tested both in ambient environment and in an indoor environment from burning mosquito-repellent incense. Eighteen carbonyls were detected in the ambient air samples with the exception of o-tolualdehyde and m-tolualdehyde, while all the 20 target carbonyls were found in the incense smoke. Compare field test with classical DNPH-HPLC/UV method, good agreement exited between the two methods for lower molecular carbonyls but PFPH method is found to be a better analytical method for determination of high molecular weight carbonyls.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Pollution and Health, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yan Li
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Chun Juan
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Jian Zhen
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Jia Liang
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Guo Ying
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.forename: Jia Mo
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Ming Hong
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Wu