Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Research Article

Comparison of Sampling Probe and Thermal Desorber in HAPSITE ER for Analysis of TO-15 Compounds

¹The Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Air Force Research Laboratory, 711^th Human Performance Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, USA

²Air Force Research Laboratory, 711^th Human Performance Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, USA

³Infoscitek Corporation, Air Force Research Laboratory, 711^th Human Performance Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, USA

⁴Air Force Research Laboratory, 711^th Human Performance Wing, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, Wright-Patterson AFB, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Jae Kwak
The Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine
Air Force Research Laboratory, 711^th Human Performance Wing
Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433, USA
Tel: +1-937-938-3790
Fax: +1-937-656-6898
E-mail: jae_hyock.kwak.ctr.kr@us.af.mil

Received date: January 23, 2014; Accepted date: February 07, 2014; Published date: February 10, 2014

Citation: Kwak J, Fan M, Geier BA, Grigsby CC, Ott DK (2014) Comparison of Sampling Probe and Thermal Desorber in HAPSITE ER for Analysis of TO-15 Compounds. J Anal Bioanal Tech S2:008. doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.S2-008

Copyright: © 2014 Kwak J, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The Hazardous Air Pollutants on Site (HAPSITE), a portable Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GCMS), has been used to detect, identify, and quantify Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from environmental samples, providing on-site analysis to aid in operational risk management. HAPSITE is equipped with a hand-held sampling probe in which an air sample is delivered into a concentrator, and the VOCs collected in the concentrator are transferred, separated, and identified in the GC-MS. An upgraded version, HAPSITE ER, has recently been introduced with additional sampling capability for solid phase micro extraction and Thermal Desorption (TD). To our knowledge, however, no study has yet evaluated the performance of the thermal desorber accommodated in HAPSITE ER. In this study, therefore, we analyzed EPA Method TO-15 compounds with two different sampling methods (probe and thermal desorber for TD tubes) in a HAPSITE ER, and compared their results against each other. A major finding was that the peak intensities of the TO-15 compounds, particularly those with high Boiling Point (BP), were substantially higher in the results obtained with the thermal desorber than in those with the sampling probe. The lower peak intensities of the compounds observed in the probe analysis are likely due to the condensation of the VOCs in the probe (transfer) line that is 6 feet long and maintained at 40°C as they are delivered from the probe to the concentrator, whereas the thermal desorber is directly connected to the HAPSITE (no transfer line is used), thereby eliminating the condensation of VOCs. In conclusion, our study suggests that for the analysis of VOCs with high up to 220°C, the use of TD tubes followed by desorption in the thermal desorber offered by the newer version of HAPSITE is recommended.

Keywords