Development of A Fiber-Packed In-Tube Extraction Device and Its Application in BTEX Analysis

Abstract

Abstract A fiber-packed in-tube extraction device was developed with heat-resistant fibers coated with molecularly imprinted polymer as adsorbent for concentration detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The coated fibers were longitudinally packed into a filling chamber. The inner diameter of the filling chamber was 3 mm and its length was 2.5 cm. The filling chamber was connected to gas chromatography port by a stainless needle. The device was heated by an external heater consisting of the heating wire surrounded outside of the filling chamber to gasify the analytes in the adsorbent. The prepared fiber-packed in-tube extraction device was used to analyze benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and o-xylene (BTEX) in gas sample coupled with gas chromatography. The result showed that the device had better permeability. The extraction time for 150 mL of gas sample was 1.2 min. The linear detection range, recovery, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were also evaluated for the promising method. The linear detection ranges for BTEX were all 1–300 μg L−1, with the correlation coefficients of greater than 0.9936. The LODs and LOQs of the analytes were in the range of 0.02–0.03 μg L−1 and 0.03–0.05 μg L−1, respectively. The recoveries of BTEX were 90.3%, 94.3%, 98.7% and 103.3%, respectively.