Supplies and Services for Mass Spectrometers, Gas Chromatographs
and Liquid Chromatographs
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22 | Last Update: 01/31/00 |
INTRODUCTION
The identification and quantification of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) in latex paints are extremely important to paint manufacturers. Potential health risks exist due to the toxic nature of many of these components. In addition, building related problems may be caused by the contamination of indoor air by emissions of VOC's from paints that have been used. The paint industry shares a common concern by now manufacturing latex paints without the use of solvents to reduce the amount of VOC's in paints to help eliminate potential health risks. Analytical techniques are needed to identify and quantitate VOC's present in latex paints, so that these techniques can be incorporated into troubleshooting problems that may arise as well as be used in a quality control program. Volatile organic compounds were collected from several commercial latex paints including paints manufactured without the use of solvents by using a purge and trap technique (P&T), followed by trapping on an adsorbent resin and subsequent analysis by thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS). The volatile organics present in the latex paints were quantified using matrix spiked deuterated standards. A method was also developed to quantify total VOC's as well as individual hydrocarbons, aromatics and halogens. This technique can be easily incorporated into a troubleshooting technique to detect problems in various commercial latex paints, to compare competing manufacturers products, as well as implementation into a quality control program.
