Development of a new needle trap-based method for the determination of some volatile organic compounds in the indoor environment

• Published in: Chemosphere (Oxford) Vol. 277; p. 130251
• Main Authors: Baysal, Ertan, Uzun, Umut Can, Ertaş, Fatma Nil, Goksel, Ozlem, Pelit, Levent
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2021
• Subjects: BTEX; Indoor air analysis; Needle trap device; Volatile organic compounds; Volatile organic compounds; Indoor air analysis; Needle trap device; BTEX
• ISSN: 0045-6535; 1879-1298
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130251

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are a large group of chemicals mostly found in indoor environments such as homes and workplaces. Long term exposure to certain VOCs can cause symptoms in some individuals and therefore, monitoring and controlling air quality can help better manage chronic respiratory diseases. In this study, we aimed to develop an easy-to-use, economical, in house needle trap-based methodology to detect certain VOCs to be used for public and occupational health. For this purpose, a multi-bed (packed with PDMS/Carbopack-X/Carboxen-1000) needle trap device (NTD) was utilized for sampling, enrichment, and injection of the VOCs into the gas chromatography. The performance of the developed method was investigated for the analysis of the group known as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene). Operational and instrumental parameters such as sampling flow rate and relative humidity, desorption time and temperature were optimized, and the analytical figures of merit of the proposed method have indicated that very low levels of BTEX in air samples can be easily determined by this new method. Overall results have shown that multi-bed NTD offers a high sensitive procedure for sampling and analysis of BTEX in concentration range of 0.002–0.298 mg/m3 in indoor air. •A novel, sensitive and fast VOC analysis method in the indoor atmosphere was developed.•A commercial multi sorbent-loaded NTD was used for the analysis of VOC for the first time.•Analysis of targeted VOCs can be carried out without the requirement of any expensive instruments.•The developed method successfully applied for the analysis of targeted VOCs in the air samples.