DETERMINATION OF VERY VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS IN ENVIRONMENTAL WATER BY INJECTION OF A LARGE AMOUNT OF HEADSPACE GAS INTO A GAS-CHROMATOGRAPH

An injection method for a large amount of headspace gas which enables determination of trace amounts of very volatile organic compounds (VVO Cs), dichlorodifluoromethane, chloromethane, vinyl chloride, bromometh ane, chloroethane and trichlorofluoromethane in all kinds of environme ntal water was developed. A gas phase equilibrated with the water phas e in a vial was purged with helium for a short time. The VVOCs were th en introduced into a trapping tube packed with Tenax TA, which had bee n cooled using carbon dioxide. After trapping, the VVOCs were thermall y desorbed and put into a GC-MS system for subsequent analysis. This m ethod is applicable to various types of samples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.