Aerial drone as a carrier for miniaturized air sampling systems

Jose Ruiz-Jimenez; Nicola Zanca; Hangzhen Lan; Matti Jussila; Kari Hartonen; Marja-Liisa Riekkola

doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2019.04.009

Aerial drone as a carrier for miniaturized air sampling systems

J Chromatogr A. 2019 Jul 19:1597:202-208. doi: 10.1016/j.chroma.2019.04.009. Epub 2019 Apr 15.

Authors

Jose Ruiz-Jimenez¹, Nicola Zanca¹, Hangzhen Lan¹, Matti Jussila¹, Kari Hartonen¹, Marja-Liisa Riekkola²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, P.O. Box 55, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland.
² Department of Chemistry and Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, P.O. Box 55, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: marja-liisa.riekkola@helsinki.fi.

PMID: 31030954
DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2019.04.009

Abstract

The applicability of an aerial drone as a carrier for new passive and active miniaturized air sampling systems, including solid phase microextration Arrow (SPME Arrow) and in-tube extraction (ITEX), was studied in this research. Thermal desorption, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry were used for the determination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) collected by the sampling systems. The direct comparison of the profiles of VOCs, simultaneously sampled in air by SPME Arrow system including four different coatings, allowed the elucidation of their adsorption selectivity. A more complex experimental design, involving 20 samples (10 flights) and non-supervised pattern recognition techniques, was needed for the clarification of the same sampling parameters in the case of five ITEX sorbent materials. In addition, ITEX sampling accessories, such as particle, water and ozone traps, were evaluated by comparing the results obtained for air samples simultaneously collected by two ITEX systems, packed with the same sorbent and furnished or not with sampling accessories. The effect of the aerial drone horizontal displacement (HD) on the sampling efficiency was clear in the case of SPME Arrow. The number of detected compounds and their relative peak area values (RPA) revealed a clear increase (4 and 43%, respectively) in comparison with samples collected without drone HD. However, just minor differences were observed in the case of ITEX (2 compounds and 9% of the ∑RPA). In addition, the system was able to provide almost simultaneous passive (SPME Arrow) and active (ITEX) samplings at different altitudes (5 and 50 m), being a good tool for low cost vertical profiling studies (∑RPA decreased over 35% for the samples collected at 50 m). Finally, the successful simultaneous air sampling by SPME Arrow and ITEX systems in two difficult access places, such as boreal forest and wetlands, was demonstrated, resulting in 21 and 31 detected compounds in forest and wetlands by SPME Arrow, and 27 and 39 compounds by ITEX.

Keywords: Aerial drone; Air sampling; ITEX; Miniaturized air sampling systems; SPME Arrow; Sampler; Sampling accessories.

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Air / analysis*
Environmental Monitoring / instrumentation*
Environmental Monitoring / methods*
Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry
Miniaturization
Solid Phase Microextraction
Volatile Organic Compounds / analysis*

Substances

Volatile Organic Compounds