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Comparison Of Tenax And Carbotrap For VOC Sampling In Indoor Air
Author(s) -
Bortoli Maurizio,
Knöppel Helmut,
Pecchio Emilio,
Schauenburg Herbert,
Vissers Henk
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
indoor air
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.387
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 1600-0668
pISSN - 0905-6947
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0668.1992.00004.x
Subject(s) - tenax , environmental science , environmental chemistry , toluene , vapours , sampling (signal processing) , indoor air , indoor air quality , benzene , pollutant , chemistry , environmental engineering , chromatography , gas chromatography , filter (signal processing) , organic chemistry , neuroscience , computer science , computer vision , biology
The most important features of Tenax and Carbotrap, solid sorbents used widely for sampling organic pollutants in air, have been tested under the conditions requested for surveys in indoor spaces and for determinations of VOC emitted from indoor sources by chamber experiments. The performances of samplers, tested with 10 nonpolar and polar (mostly lipophilic) hydrocarbons, present as vapours in 0.5 to 2.0 litre air samples, include: (a) accuracy and reproducibility of the measured concentration, (b) background or “blank” of samplers, (c) stability upon storage (at ambient and below ambient temperatures) of clean samplers and of samplers loaded with VOC, and (d) performance stability after several sampling desorption cycles. The results fulfil the requirements for both adsorbents, though each presents some different drawbacks. In particular (a) Tenax samplers show a “blank” (90 percentile) of 16 ng of benzene and 5 ng of toluene, Carbotrap samplers roughly twice as much; (b) the samplers may be stored for one month either before or after use and (c) they may withstand many cycles without discernible deterioration.