American Association for Aerosol Research - Abstract Submission

AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

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Development of Thermal Desorption – Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography Coupled with Tandem Mass Spectrometry (TD–GC×GC–MS/MS) for Determination of Trace Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Their Derivatives in Diesel Exhaust and Atmosphere

AKIHIRO FUSHIMI, Shunji Hashimoto, Teruyo Ieda, Nobuo Ochiai, Yoshikatsu Takazawa, Yuji Fujitani, Kiyoshi Tanabe, National Institute for Environmental Studies

     Abstract Number: 119
     Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods

Abstract
We developed a highly sensitive method for determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their derivatives (oxygenated, nitrated, and methylated PAHs) in trace particulate samples by using thermal desorption followed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (TD–GC×GC–MS/MS) with a multiple reaction monitoring mode. The sensitivity of TD–GC×GC–MS/MS was greater than that of TD–GC–high-resolution MS and TD–GC×GC–quadrupole MS by one or two orders of magnitude. The quantification limits were 0.09–0.8 pg (PAHs), 0.1–0.8 pg (oxygenated PAHs), 0.1–0.4 pg (nitrated PAHs), and 0.04–0.3 pg (methylated PAHs). For small amounts (10–20 μg) of standard reference materials (SRMs 1649a and 1650b, urban dust and diesel exhaust particles, respectively), the values measured by using TD–GC×GC–MS/MS agreed with the certified or reference values within a factor of two. Major analytes were quantified successfully by TD–GC×GC–MS/MS from diesel exhaust nanoparticles (18–32 nm) and accumulation-mode particles (100–180 nm).

This work was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund of the Japanese Ministry of the Environment (S2–06).