The use of kaolin for passive sampling of volatile organic compounds in air

• Christof St í¶nner Universit í¤t Mainz-Germany.
• Daniel Mateu Universitat de Val í¨ncia-Spain
• Miguel De la Guardia Universitat de Val í¨ncia-Spain

Abstract

The use of kaolin as adsorbent to fill semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) in order   to catch volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air has been evaluated. The quantification was   performed by head-space sampling-gas chromatography (HS-GC-MS) using a multi-analyte calibration in spiked passive samplers in a range of 15 ng to 15 µg and providing a multi-residue analytical procedure. The omission of sample pre-treatment and the avoidance of deleterious solvents make possible a fast, direct and green determination of VOCs in air with limit of detection values of the order of 40ng per sampler.