Abstract
Phenolic compounds in air are toxic even at their low concentrations. We had evaluated a total of five phenolic compounds (Phenol, o-Cresol, m-Cresol, 2-Nitrophenol and 4-Chloro-3-methylphenol) in artificial air using a combination of ATD/GC/MS. To compare the adsorption efficiency of these phenolic compounds, three adsorbents (Tenax TA, Carbotrap and Carbopack B) were tested. Tenax TA adsorbent was most effective of all the adsorbents used for the efficiency test. Five phenolic compounds were found to be very stable on adsorbent tubes for 4 days at room temperature. Detection limit of five phenolic compounds ranged from 0.05 to 0.08 ppb (when assumed to collect 10 L air). The calibration curve was linear over the range of 22∼ 164 ng. The reproducibility was less than 4%. Sampling of duplicate pairs (DPs) was made to demonstrate duplicate precision and sampling efficiency.