Bv. Burger et M. Leroux, TRACE DETERMINATION OF VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS IN WATER BY ENRICHMENT IN ULTRA-THICK-FILM CAPILLARY TRAPS AND GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY, Journal of chromatography, 642(1-2), 1993, pp. 117-122
The technique by which volatile organic compounds are enriched in coat
ed or uncoated capillaries, and desorbed for qualitative gas chromatog
raphic determination, was adapted for quantitative analysis by using a
1-m length of ultra-thick-film trap (14-mum film thickness) to extrac
t the volatile compounds flowing through the trap at 0-degrees-C. The
trapped volatiles are thermally desorbed, cryotrapped on an analytical
capillary column and determined by gas chromatography with flame ioni
zation detection. It was found that analytes such as dichloromethane a
nd chloroform did not break through when sampling 1 ml of water. With
this sampling volume, relative standard deviations well below ca. 2% a
nd ca. 2-4% were obtained for most of the analytes at levels of 1 ppm
(v/v) and 1 ppb (v/v), respectively.