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Determination of benzene at trace levels in air by a novel method based on solid-phase microextraction gas
A Saba1, A Cuzzola, A Raffaelli
1Centro di Studio del CNR per le Macromolecole Stereordinate ed Otticamente Attive, Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, Via Risorgimento 35, I-56126 Pisa, Italy.
Abstract:
A new method for the determination of benzene at trace levels in air is presented. The method consists of the collection of air samples on adsorbent cartridges with simultaneous adsorption of pre-established amounts of D6-labeled internal standard. Desorption from the cartridge is performed by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) using an ion trap mass spectrometer. The influence of several parameters (type of SPME fiber, temperature, time, for example) was investigated, and good linearity in the range 10-400 ng of C6D6, with a coefficient of variance (CV) around 3-5%, was obtained. The method was tested by sampling air in a town center in Italy, and a benzene concentration of approximately 50 microg/m(3) was determined. The maximum limit recommended by the European Community is 10 microg/m(3).