Gas chromatographic vapor pressure determination of atmospherically relevant oxidation products of β-caryophyllene and α-pinene

Vapor pressures (subcooled liquid, pliquid) of atmospherically relevant oxidation products of β-caryophyllene (β-caryophyllene aldehyde 0.18 ± 0.03 Pa and β-nocaryophyllene aldehyde 0.17 ± 0.03 Pa), and α-pinene (pinonaldehyde 16.8 ± 0.20 Pa, cis-pinic acid 0.12 ± 0.06 Pa, and cis-pinonic acid 0.99 ± 0.19 Pa) at 298 K were obtained by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (FID) and mass spectrometric (MS) detection. The effects of stationary phase polarity and column film thickness on the vapor pressure values were investigated. Increase in stationary phase polarity provided smaller values, while increase in film thickness gave slightly higher values. Values for vapor pressure were at least two orders of magnitude lower when obtained by a method utilizing vaporization enthalpy (determined by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry) than by retention index method. Finally, the results were compared with values calculated by group contribution theory. For the β-caryophyllene oxidation products, the values measured by gas chromatography were slightly lower than those obtained by theoretical calculations. The opposite trend was observed for the α-pinene oxidation products. The methods based on gas chromatography are concluded to be highly useful for the determination of vapor pressures of semi-volatile compounds. Except for the most polar pinic and pinonic acids, differences between vapor pressure values obtained by GC–FID and GC–MS were small. Since GC–MS provides structural information simultaneously, the use of GC–MS is recommended.