Sensitive indoor air monitoring of monoterpenes using different adsorbents and thermal desorption gas chromatography with mass-selective detection

A simple method using active trapping on adsorbents and thermal desorption followed by GC–MS analysis was developed for the indoor air monitoring of monoterpenes. The study was carried out using a dynamically generated atmosphere consisting of 11 monoterpenes: camphene, camphor, Δ3-carene, 1,8-cineol, limonene, linalool, α-pinene, β-pinene, α-terpinene, γ-terpinene, fenchyl alcohol. The influence of the different adsorbents Tenax TA, Tenax GR, Carbosieve SIII, Chromosorb 106 on the yield of six selected monoterpenes at indoor air concentrations was studied. The adsorbent Tenax GR gave relatively the best yields followed by Tenax TA. Detection limits of approximately 1 μg m3 were determined with Tenax GR for most of the monoterpenes.