Acetic acid and formic acid concentrations in the museum environment measured by SPME-GC/MS

A method is described to sample and quantify acetic and formic acid vapours within 35 min. The detection limits are 5.3 and 28.9 μg/m3, respectively, and the technique used is manual SPME collection of the sample followed by analysis on a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry system. In both cases linearity between the standards prepared and the results measured are found. The technique can be used to analyse air in small confined areas, as the total volume of air sampled is <4 l.