Sampling free and particle-bound chemicals using solid-phase microextraction and needle trap device simultaneously.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Accurate sampling of airborne organic compounds is crucial for exposure assessment.
• Distinguishing between free and particle-bound analytes presents analytical challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the performance of Needle Trap Device (NTD) and Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME) for sampling free and particle-bound allethrin from mosquito coil smoke.
• To evaluate the capacity of each device to capture different phases of airborne compounds.

Main Methods:

• Simultaneous sampling of mosquito coil smoke using NTD and SPME.
• Quantification of allethrin, the active ingredient, as the target analyte.
• Analysis under identical sampling and desorption conditions.

Main Results:

• NTD extracted significantly higher amounts of allethrin from mosquito coil smoke compared to SPME.
• Both devices showed similar extraction efficiency for gaseous allethrin samples.
• NTD's exhaustive sampling capability captured both free and particle-bound allethrin, while SPME primarily captured free molecules.
• Negligible breakthrough and carryover were observed for both devices.

Conclusions:

• NTD is more effective than SPME for sampling particle-bound organic compounds, such as those found in mosquito coil emissions.
• The choice of sampling device depends on whether free or total (free + particle-bound) analytes are of interest.
• NTD offers a robust method for comprehensive airborne analyte collection.