Application of homemade portable gas chromatography coupled to photoionization detector for the detection of volatile organic compounds in an industrial park

Xiaobing Pang; Wenke Li; Shuaiqi Wang; Zhentao Wu; Songhua Sun; Yan Lyu; Dongzhi Chen; Haiyan Li

doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2023.464089

Application of homemade portable gas chromatography coupled to photoionization detector for the detection of volatile organic compounds in an industrial park

J Chromatogr A. 2023 Aug 16:1704:464089. doi: 10.1016/j.chroma.2023.464089. Epub 2023 May 25.

Authors

Xiaobing Pang¹, Wenke Li², Shuaiqi Wang³, Zhentao Wu³, Songhua Sun⁴, Yan Lyu³, Dongzhi Chen⁵, Haiyan Li²

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China; College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310000, China. Electronic address: pangxb@zjut.edu.cn.
² School of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China.
³ College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310000, China.
⁴ Shaoxing Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Center of Zhejiang Province, Shaoxing 312000, China.
⁵ School of Petrochemical Engineering&Environment, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China.

PMID: 37307636
DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2023.464089

Abstract

Traditional offline detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) requires complex and time-consuming pre-treatments including gas sampling in containers, pre-concentrations, and thermal desorption, which hinders its application in rapid VOCs monitoring. Developing a cost-effective instrument is of great importance for online measurement of VOCs. Recently, photoionization detectors (PID) are received great attention due to their fast response time and high sensitivity. This study a portable gas chromatography coupled to PID (pGC-PID) was developed and optimized experimental parameters for the application in online monitoring of VOCs at an industrial site. The sampling time, oven temperature and carrier gas flow rate were optimized as 80 s, 50 °C and 60 ml·min^-1, respectively. The sampling method is direct injection. Poly tetra fluoroethylene (PTFE) filter membranes were selected to remove particulate matter from interfering with PID. The reproducibility and peak separation were good with relative standard deviations (RSD) ≤ 7%. Good linearities of 27 VOCs standard curves were achieved with R² ≥ 0.99, and the detection limits were ≤10 ppb with the lowest being 2 ppb for 1,1,2-Trichloroethane. Finally, the pGC-PID is successfully applied in online VOCs monitoring at an industrial site. A total of 17 VOCs species was detected and their diurnal variations were well obtained, indicating pGC-PID is well suited for online analysis in field campaign.

Keywords: Industrial park; Online analysis; Portable GC-PID (pGC-PID); Volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

MeSH terms

Chromatography, Gas / methods
Environmental Monitoring / methods
Reproducibility of Results
Temperature
Volatile Organic Compounds* / analysis

Substances

Volatile Organic Compounds