Simultaneous determination of 15 organic compounds in the air of workplace by gas chromatography

Objective To establish a gas chromatographic method for the simultaneous determination of 15 organic compounds including benzene, toluene, o-xylene, m-xylene, p-xylene, ethylbenzene, styrene, n-hexane, acetone, butanone, ethyl acetate, butyl acetate, cyclohexanone, trichlorethylene, and tetrachlorethylene in workplaces.

Methods The targets were absorbed by carbon tube. After desorption by carbon disulfide, the solution was separated by CP-WAX capillary column, and then detected by FID detector.

Results The limits of quantitation were 0.50-15.98 mg/L, and the limits of detection were 0.15-4.80 mg/L. Good linear relationships were achieved, with the correlation coefficients above 0.999 0. The recoveries ranged from 76.8% to 99.5% and the relative standard deviations were less than 4%.

Conclusion The method is simple and sensitive, and suitable for simultaneous determination of 15 kinds of organic compounds in the air of workplaces.