Analysis of volatile organic compounds in indoor environments using thermal desorption with comprehensive two‐dimensional gas chromatography and high‐resolution time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

Building-related health effects are frequently observed. Several factors have been listed as possible causes including temperature, humidity, light conditions, presence of particulate matter, and microorganisms or volatile organic compounds. To be able to link exposure to specific volatile organic compounds to building-related health effects, powerful and comprehensive analytical methods are required. For this purpose, we developed an active air sampling method that utilizes dual-bed tubes loaded with TENAX-TA and Carboxen-1000 adsorbents to sample two parallel air samples of 4 L each. For the comprehensive volatile organic compounds analysis, an automated thermal desorption comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry method was developed and used. It allowed targeted analysis of approximately 90 known volatile organic compounds with relative standard deviations below 25% for the vast majority of target volatile organic compounds. It also allowed semiquantification (no matching standards) of numerous nontarget air contaminants using the same data set. The nontarget analysis workflow included peak finding, background elimination, feature alignment, detection frequency filtering, and tentative identification. Application of the workflow to air samples from 68 indoor environments at a large hospital complex resulted in a comprehensive volatile organic compound characterization, including 178 single compounds and 13 hydrocarbon groups. K E Y W O R D Scomprehensive screening, indoor air, method development, thermal desorption, volatile organic compounds

Non‐invasive sorptive extraction for the separation of human skin surface chemicals using comprehensive gas chromatography coupled to time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry: A mosquito‐host biting site investigation

“…These results are in line with results obtained from a non‐targeted indoor VOCs study using GC × GC coupled to a high‐resolution mass spectrometer [36]. The authors reported an average agreement of within 8 RI units and an SD of ±23 RI units [36]. Compounds that were closely associated with the wrist included 6‐methyl‐1‐heptanol, 3‐(4‐isopropylphenyl)‐2‐methylpropionaldehyde, 2‐phenoxyethyl isobutyrate, and 2,4,6‐trimethyl‐pyridine.…”

“…On average the agreement between experimental and database LRIs was ±2 RI units (SD ±8 RI units). These results are in line with results obtained from a non-targeted indoor VOCs study using GC × GC coupled to a high-resolution mass spectrometer [36]. The authors reported an average agreement of within 8 RI units and an SD of ±23 RI units [36].…”

“…On average the LODs were 67 pg for the solvent modified method and 72 pg for the non‐solvent modified method, while Veenaas et al. reported an average on‐tube LOD of 93 pg [36].…”

“…The reported LODs obtained with passive absorptive extraction is on average lower than those reported by Veenaas et al using active adsorbent extraction of indoor VOCs with GC × GC-TOFMS. On average the LODs were 67 pg for the solvent modified method and 72 pg for the non-solvent modified method, while Veenaas et al reported an average on-tube LOD of 93 pg [36]. No significant observable difference in terms of precision (%RSD) and LODs was found between the PDMS sampler solvent modified or not modified.…”

Miniaturized active air sampling method for the analysis of tire rubber pollutants from indoor and outdoor places

“…However, there is still not an air quality strict regulation and their presence in urban air is mostly produced by common anthropogenic sources like intense traffic emissions, and recent studies have demonstrated that car tires wear contribute to release PAHs and other compounds to the ambient air [8][9][10]. Different procedures, based on passive [11,12] as well as active [13][14][15] air sampling, have been proposed for the extraction of different organic pollutants, including PAHs, polychlorinated biphenyls, plasticizers, or flame retardants in air. In most cases, the analytes are trapped onto an appropriate sorbent such as polyurethane foam, XADresin, or carbon-based materials as well as mixtures of different sorbents, followed by thermic or solvent desorption [15][16][17].…”