Monitoring of volatile organic compounds in air samples by dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction-based method
Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2026
Yazarlar: Berfu Yigrik, Nergis Ilayda Ozkan, Tugba Yavuz, Füsun PELİT, Boguslaw Buszewski, Levent PELİT
MICROCHEMICAL JOURNAL, SCI İndekslerine Giren Dergi, Uluslararası, Wos, 2026, cilt 224, ss 1-13
DOI: 10.1016/j.microc.2026.117496
Özet
Monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air samples has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their harmful effects on both human health and the environment. Therefore, the development of effective methods for VOCs analysis is greatly important. In this study, an easy, rapid, and cost-effective dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) based method was developed for the determination of selected VOCs, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, and o-xylene (BTEX), in the indoor environment. The extraction phase was prepared by dispersing the extraction solvent in water via mechanical stirring. The BTEX compounds in the air samples were then extracted into the femtoliter volume of extraction droplets by passing the air sample through the dispersive liquid. Subsequently, the extract phase was separated from the aqueous solution by centrifugation and the NB phase was injected into a gas chromatography system equipped with a flame ionization detector (GC-FID) for the determination of BTEX compounds. The performances of several extraction solvents were compared, and the best performance was obtained using nitrobenzene (NB). Key method parameters, including gas sampling flow rate and volume, stirring time of the extraction liquid, dispersive liquid volume, sampling temperature, and pH, were optimized and set to 20 mL/ min, 200 mL, 4 h (at 1200 rpm), 10 mL, 20-35 degrees C, and 9, respectively. Under the optimized conditions, the analytical figures of merit of the proposed method, including the limits of detection (LOD), linear range, intraday repeatability, and interday repeatability for the target compounds, were found to be 0.09-0.30 ppmv, 0.3-300 ppmv, 3.1-8.9%, and 8.1-14.4%, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to the monitoring of BTEX in an indoor environment, yielding acceptable recovery values between 94% and 116%. The proposed DLLME method, developed for the first time for air sampling, offers significant analytical advantages over existing sample preparation approaches due to its low solvent consumption, short analysis time, high enrichment factor, and reliable determination of trace-level pollutants.