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Last Update: 01/31/00

Analyses of Indoor Air and Sources of Indoor Air Contamination By Thermal Desorption

INTRODUCTION

Numerous reports have appeared describing the Sick Building Syndrome, which was been associated with the quality of indoor air in public buildings. Building related health problems may be due to contamination of indoor air by emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) from a variety of sources including: construction materials, fabrics, furnishings, maintenance supplies, combustion by-products, adhesives, paints, caulks, paper and cleaning products. Recently, new allegations have appeared suggesting increased danger to the population and especially to children from second hand smoke from cigarettes. Because many of the volatile emissions and by-products from these products are toxic, additional knowledge of the levels of these organic chemicals in the indoor air environment is required in order to determine the human health impacts. In the next few years, it is expected that the quality of indoor air will come under closer scrutiny by the public in both the domestic home and industrial workplace environments. New methods will be required to accurately determine the identity and quantify the levels of these volatile organics in indoor air samples. Likewise, additional studies will be needed to determine the sources of the air contamination and manufacturing processes improved to limit the emission of VOC's from these manufactured products.

The Scientific Instrument Services Short Path Thermal Desorption system was used in conjunction with adsorbent traps packed with Tenax® TA (TM) adsorbent resin to trap the VOC's in air samples for subsequent analysis via GC/MS. The technique has proven to be extremely versatile for the analysis of air samples to detect and identify organics in air in concentration ranges from parts per hundred (pph) to sub parts per billion (ppb). Air samples from 1 ml up through 100 liters are pumped through the absorbent trap using a small industrial hygiene pump to trap the volatiles on the adsorbent trap. After the VOC's and semi-volatiles, are trapped they are thermally extracted from the adsorbent resins using the Short Path Thermal Desorption System. This technique uses a combination of ballistic heating and purging of pure GC carrier gas through the adsorbent resin to extract the VOC's, as well as many semi-volatiles from the resin trap and onto the GC column for subsequent analysis. Solid samples, as vinyl flooring, are placed in an enclosed environment, purged with air to trap the volatile emissions on the adsorbent traps and then analyzed in the same manner as the air samples. This technique can be utilized for both the qualitative and quantitative analysis of VOC's and semi-volatiles in indoor air as well as outdoor air samples.

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