Measurement of volatile organic compounds by the US Environmental Protection Agency Compendium Method TO-17: Evaluation of performance criteria

An evaluation of performance criteria for US Environmental Protection Agency Compendium Method TO-17 for monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air has been accomplished. The method is a solid adsorbent-based sampling and analytical procedure including performance criteria for four merit pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Chromatography A 1998-07, Vol.813 (1), p.101-111
Main Authors: McClenny, William A, Colón, Maribel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air Pollutants, Occupational - analysis
Air Pollution, Indoor - analysis
Analysis methods
Applied sciences
Atmospheric pollution
Chromatography, Gas
Exact sciences and technology
Hydrocarbons - analysis
Pollution
Reference Standards
Reproducibility of Results
Solvents
United States
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Volatile organic compounds
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Summary:An evaluation of performance criteria for US Environmental Protection Agency Compendium Method TO-17 for monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air has been accomplished. The method is a solid adsorbent-based sampling and analytical procedure including performance criteria for four merit parameters. These are: (1) the method detection limit (MDL); (2) the method precision; (3) the agreement between two samples taken at different flow-rates over the same time period [a distributed volume pair (DVP)]; and (4) audit accuracy. A two-adsorbent tube packing of Carbotrap and Carboxen 1000 (Supelco) was tested. Synthetic mixtures containing 41 compounds at concentrations of 10 ppb (v/v) or 2 ppb (v/v) each in humidified zero air, and indoor air from a personal residence, were sampled for 1-h periods during which 1-l and 4-l samples were obtained simultaneously. For synthetic samples, the MDL was determined to be ≤0.5 ppb (v/v) for 29 of the 41 compounds examined for samples at 47% relative humidity (RH), and for 27 of 41 compounds at 85% RH. The method precision at both 2 and 10 ppb (v/v) was ≤20% for 90+% of the samples using five sampling runs and the DVP samples were within 25% for 80% of the samples. For the indoor samples, 26 target compounds were tentatively identified and 12 unknowns were detected; all but 10% of these compounds met the DVP criteria.
ISSN:0021-9673
DOI:10.1016/S0021-9673(98)00327-6