LANGMUIRIAN PARAMETERS FOR TENAX GC ADSORPTION OF AIRBORNE ORGANOHALOGEN COMPOUNDS

A study of the sampling conditions of diverse trihalomethanes, alkyl, alkenyl and aromatic chlorinated and brominated compounds and one chlo roalcohol adsorbed on Tenax GC showed that the chromatographic behavio r of these volatile organohalogen compounds can be modeled with a Lang muir isotherm. The equations derived from this model allow a descripti on of the dependence between breakthrough volumes and atmospheric phas e concentration of the adsorbates. They also indicate the breakthrough volumes at infinite dilution and the concentration thresholds requiri ng the application of Langmuir isotherms to avoid important quantitati ve sampling errors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .