A review of techniques for measurement of airborne aldehydes

The literature on aldehyde measurement methods was surveyed and critically reviewed to determine which methods would prove most suitable for monitoring personal exposure to a number of aldehyde compounds that have been found in air. A variety of methods was found that were applicable to measurement of specific aldehydes. Some of these were based on instrumental and spectrophotometric analytical methods. Others, based on direct sorption of aldehydes on solid sorbents with subsequent instrumental analysis, were developed and validated only for one or two aldehydes in air. The most promising techniques involved derivatization with one of several available agents (e.g., N-benzylethanolamine, 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine) and, most commonly, extraction and analysis using chromatographic (HPLC or GC) instrumentation. Even these, however, were not found to be fully validated methods suitable for the concurrent measurement of several aldehydes.