Gas chromatographic determination of glutaraldehyde in the workplace atmosphere after derivatization with O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl)hydroxylamine on a solid-phase microextraction fibre

Abstract

Glutaraldehyde is used primarily in hospital environments for the disinfection of various instruments (e.g., endoscopes). We describe in this paper the measurement of glutaraldehyde in a hospital environment using solid-phase microextraction. The method includes, prior to sampling, the adsorption of O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl)hydroxylamine on to the fibre (with polydimethylsiloxane–divinylbenzene). The fibre is then exposed to air, after which desorption is performed in the GC injection port. This process results in the formation of a stable derivative of the glutaraldehyde that is suitable for chromatographic purposes and detectable with classical detection methods, such as flame ionisation and electron-capture detection. We demonstrate that the procedure of adsorption, thermal desorption and derivatization is robust and reproducible. We were able to detect concentrations of 60 μg/m 3 (10 s sampling) or 6 μg/m 3 (120 s sampling) by electron-capture detection, and 80 μg/m 3 (120 s sampling) by flame ionisation detection. We compared our method to currently existing methods of glutaraldehyde measurement and highlighted several important advantages of the method.