Monitoring of volatile organic compounds in ambient air of Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan

1School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan 2Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Center of Physicochemical methods of research and analysis, Almaty, Kazakhstan 3Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Physics and Mathematics, Almaty, Kazakhstan *E-mail: baimatova@cfhma.kz The pollution of ambient air is one of the main sources of risk to human health in the world. There is a direct relationship between the level of air pollution and risk of the development of cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory and other diseases. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and o-xylene (BTEX) are one of the most toxic volatile organic compounds. The aim of this study was to quantify BTEX in air of Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan using solid-phase microextraction followed by gas chromatography with mass-spectrometric detection. In different sampling seasons, average concentrations of four BTEX analytes varied from 7.5 to 27 μg/m3, from 15 to 250 μg/m3, from 2.4 to 12.8 μg/m3 and from 2.6 to 21 μg/m3, respectively. The highest concentrations of TEX were detected in autumn, while the highest concentrations of benzene were observed in winter. Toluene-to-benzene ratios in almost all measurements were above 1 indicating that the traffic emissions are the main source of air pollution with BTEX.