DETERMINATION OF SOLVENT THINNER COMPONENTS IN HUMAN-BODY FLUIDS BY CAPILLARY GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH TRAPPING AT LOW OVEN TEMPERATURE FOR HEADSPACE SAMPLES

A simple and sensitive method is presented for determination of solven t thinner components in human body fluids by capillary gas chromatogra phy (GC) with a low oven temperature for trapping headspace vapor comp onents, After heating a blood or urine sample containing ethyl acetate , benzene, butan-1-ol, toluene, butyl acetate, isoamyl acetate and eth ylbenzene (internal standard) in a 7.5 ml vial at 90 degrees C for 30 min, 5 ml of headspace vapor were drawn into a glass syringe, All vapo r was introduced through an injection port in the splitless mode into a DB-624 medium-bore capillary column at a 5 degrees C oven temperatur e for trapping the volatile compounds, and the oven temperature was pr ogrammed up to 110 degrees C for their detection by GC, These conditio ns gave sharp peaks, a good separation of each peak and low background noise for both whole blood and urine samples, As much as 3.58-55.1 an d 3.52-57.9% of the six compounds, which had been added to vials, coul d be introduced to the GC instrument for whole blood and urine, respec tively, The intra-day RSD values in terms of the introduction rate (ne t recovery) of the six compounds in whole blood and urine samples were less than or equal to 8.1%. The calibration curves showed linearity i n the range 0.78-400 ng per 0.5 ml whole blood or urine, The detection limits were 0.5-5 ng per 0.5 ml. The data on toluene in post mortem b lood in an actual case are also presented.