Challenges of fast sampling of volatiles for thermal desorption gas chromatography - mass spectrometry

Fast active sampling of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) under field conditions still is a great challenge especially when the exposure time to the source of emissions is a restricting factor. Hence, to identify ideal conditions for such applications, we systematically compared fast active sampling of VOCs collected on two common adsorbents under two regimes: first, very low gas volumes (from 300 mL) sampled at nominal flow rate and, second, sampling at the maximal applicable flow rate (0.5 L/min) before loss of sorbent material was experienced. For XAD-2 and Tenax TA, efficient sorbents for on-site VOC-sampling followed by thermal desorption GC-MS, significant differences in the signal response of volatile compounds were related not only to the varied experimental factors alone, but also to their interactions and to compound volatility. In the first regime, volatiles (∼0.004-3.13 mM) from Tenax TA gave the highest signal response only above 800 mL sampled gas volume while at low concentrations (∼0.004-0.12 mM), satisfactory recovery from XAD-2 required longer analyte-sorbent interaction. For the second regime, the relative recovery was severely impaired down to 73 ± 23%, n = 56 for Tenax TA and 72 ± 17%, n = 56 for XAD-2 at intermediate concentration, and 79 ± 11%, n = 84 for Tenax TA at high concentration compared to the relative recovery at standard flow rate. Neither Tenax TA nor XAD-2 provided a 100% total recovery (calculated using breakthrough values) for any of the evaluated compounds. Finally, two-way and three-way interactions identified in a multi-variable model, explained not only the dependence of the signal response on different experimental variables, but also their complex interplay affecting the recovery of the VOCs. In conclusion, we show for the first time that XAD-2, a material only recently introduced for the adsorption of volatiles from the gas phase, competes well with the standard material Tenax TA under conditions of fast sampling. Due to the similar absolute recovery with Tenax TA even at low concentration and with regard to the better detection limits, we consider XAD-2 the better choice for fast sampling of VOCs, particularly with low sample volumes at regular flow. For fast sampling with high flow rate, however, both sorbents might be selected only if the corresponding recovery loss can be accepted for the study.