2018 Volume 21 Issue 3 Pages 199-207
Naphthalene (NP), primarily used as a moth-repellent in residences, is indicated to be possibly carcinogenic to humans. Therefore, it is concerned about health effects of the residents by long-term exposure to NP. Generally, airborne NP is analyzed after active sampling with a suction pump. In the present study, a simultaneous analytical method was described for determination of airborne NP with p-dichlorobenzene (DCB), one of the moth-repellents widely being used in residences, by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) after passive sampling, which was a convenient method that required no suction pump.
NP and DCB in indoor air were collected for 24 hours by using a commercial passive sampler packed with 200 mg of activated charcoal. The target compounds collected were extracted from the activated charcoal with 1 ml of toluene after addition of their surrogates as internal standards, and were quantified by GC/MS.
The calibration curves for determination of NP and DCB were linear at the concentrations of up to ca. 400 and 600 μg/m3, respectively, as airborne concentrations (quantification limits: NP, 0.09 μg/m3; DCB, 0.04 μg/m3). The coefficients of variation of the quantitative values for the compounds on replicate assays of the whole preparation were less than 7%, which indicate good reproducibility. These compounds in used sampler were stable for up to two months at 4°C in the dark.
The present analytical method was simple and precise for determination of airborne NP, and could simultaneously quantify DCB.
