Volatile organic compounds in an urban environment: a comparison among Belgium,Vietnam and Ethiopia

The effects of urban and indoor air pollution on human health are a major environmental concern for all, but not much has been researched in the developing world. Specifically, quantitative data on the occurrence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – main contributors to air pollution – in Asia and Africa are scarce compared to the availability of data in the developed world. This paper presents one of the first studies focusing on the analysis and occurrence of VOCs in Vietnam and Ethiopia, which constitutes part of the novelty of this work. A spectrum of 34 VOCs was measured at eight different urban sites in Ghent (Belgium), Hanoi (Vietnam), Jimma and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) during three sampling campaigns from September 2008 to September 2010. Sampling was done in an active way by means of sorbent tubes filled with Tenax TA. The analysis was done by TD-GC-MS using internal standard calibration. Data were interpreted and compared in terms of (i) individual, subgroup and total VOCs concentration (TVOCs), (ii) indoor-to-outdoor (I/O) concentration ratios, (iii) source identification by diagnostic ratio and/or correlation coefficients, and (iv) ozone formation potential (OFP) at outdoor sites based on up-to-date maximum incremental reactivity (MIR). I/O concentration ratios varied between 0.2 and 30, with big differences noticed with respect to the type of VOC(s) considered and the type of outdoor sampling location. The highest TVOC concentrations were measured in street samples with maximum values of 54?µg/m³ in Ghent, 507?µg/m³ in Hanoi and 318?µg/m³ in Addis Ababa illustrating the large difference in ambient air quality levels. This is also reflected in the arithmetic mean OFP values (µg/m³) of 82, 1308 and 596 in Ghent, Hanoi and Addis Ababa, respectively. Results of this study could be helpful to support formulation of national policy with regard to ambient air quality.     

中空碳纳米球的制备及VOCs吸附性能

首先, 在碱性条件下, 不使用表面活性剂, 采用St?ber小球法以正硅酸四乙酯(TEOS)和正硅酸四丙酯(TPOS)为硅源, 生成初级氧化硅球形颗粒; 然后, 使酚醛树脂(间苯二酚和甲醛)与球形氧化硅的羟基共缩合形成酚醛树脂-氧化硅复合材料; 最后, 经高温碳化和酸蚀获得了空心碳纳米球(HCNSs). 通过调节TEOS/TPOS的摩尔比获得了一系列具有良好的单分散性且粒径、 壁厚可调节的HCNSs, 其粒径和壁厚分别在280~430 nm和15~63 nm的范围内. 仅以TPOS为硅源时合成的HCNS-0/4具有较大的粒径(426 nm)和壁厚(63 nm)、 较高的比表面积(1216 m²/g)和孔容(0.508 cm³/g), 并且具有较大的挥发性有机化合物(VOCs)吸附性能, 其正己烷、 甲苯和油气的静态吸附容量分别为2.02, 1.42和0.926 g/g, 正己烷和甲苯的动态吸附容量分别为2.01 g/g和1.37 g/g, 均远高于商业化活性炭.     

Catalytic oxidation of benzene at low temperature over novel combination of metal oxide based catalysts: CuO,MnO2, NiO with Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 as support

Mesoporous Ce_0.75Zr_0.25O₂ solid solution powders were successfully synthesized by a co-precipitation method. A combination of 10 wt% copper oxide, manganese oxide, and nickel oxide was added to the Ce_0.75Zr_0.25O₂ support by impregnation method and calcined in the air with a flow rate of 2 ml s^?1 at 400 °C for 4 h. All catalysts were characterized using Hydrogen Temperature Programmed Reduction (H₂-TPR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) isotherm methods to find the interaction between metals, the crystallinity of the catalyst, surface area and pore volume of the catalyst, respectively. The 3.3% CuO-3.3% MnO₂-3.3% NiO/Ce_0.75Zr_0.25O₂ catalyst showed higher catalytic activity for benzene oxidation with benzene conversion of 90% at 250 °C and weight hourly space velocity (72,000 mL g^?1 h^?1) when compared to one metal oxide only. This finding presents a high activity and low-cost catalysts for removing a very lean concentration of benzene containing in the industrial flue gas at low temperatures.     

柔性PDA薄膜阵列用于双模光学检测VOC标志物气体

本研究以亲油性的双面胶作为基底,利用滴涂二乙炔单体结合紫外光聚合来制备均匀的聚二乙炔(PDA)薄膜,通过荧光和颜色两种信号变化模式(即"双模光学检测")研究了PDA薄膜对VOC气体的响应性,发现制备的PDA薄膜在2 min内就可以实现明显的荧光和颜色变化,有效解决了目前PDA薄膜在VOC气体检测方面存在响应速度慢、薄膜均一性差等问题.此外,为解决单一PDA薄膜的交叉响应性问题,本研究制备了四种不同的基于双面胶基底的PDA薄膜,并将制备的4种PDA薄膜集成到一片PDMS薄膜基底上来构建柔性的传感阵列,利用阵列的颜色变化结合模式识别技术,实现了对8种VOC气体的快速、灵敏区分.进一步将制备的PDA薄膜阵列用于健康人、模拟糖尿病及肾病患者呼出气体中VOC标志物的辨别和分析研究,发现可以将三类人的呼出气体清晰地区分,说明了该阵列在呼气疾病诊断中的应用前景.与目前报道的PDA薄膜阵列相比,本研究中基于双面胶基底的PDA薄膜阵列具有气体响应速度快、灵敏性高、柔韧性好、制备工艺简单、成本低、易于大规模制备等优点,有望用于实VOC气体检测研究中.     

Comparative analysis of bias in the collection of airborne pollutants: Tests on major aromatic VOC using three types of sorbent-based methods

This study was undertaken to establish one of the most reliable sampling methods and to precisely evaluate the bias involved in the collection of airborne pollutant samples. For the purpose of our study, we investigated the performance of three different types of sampling techniques by measuring major aromatic volatile organic compounds (VOC) in outdoor air; the target analytes specifically include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (commonly called BTEX). As the first step of our approach, we designed and developed a multi-channel sampling system consisting of a six-port mass flow controller (SJU-MFC) system. Because this system allowed the collection of up to six replicate samples, our measurement results were analyzed and screened statistically for the derivation of high-quality BTEX data. The feasibility of this sampling system was further tested through a comparison with concurrent measurement data sets obtained by two additional, but independent, sampling techniques: (1) automatic continuous sampler (ACS) and (2) on-line GC (O-GC) system. Based on the data sets collected concurrently by three different sampling methods, we attempted to evaluate the compatibility of sampling techniques. Although the results obtained by SJU-MFC system were not statistically different from those of the O-GC system, they were moderately distinguishable from those of ACS. Such patterns were seen consistently, when examined by correlation analysis. The overall results of our study thus generally point out that the compatibility of data sets, when the proper caution is taken, improve significantly among different sampling methodologies.     

Investigations providing a plausible mechanism in the hexamethyldisilazane-catalyzed trimerization of alkyl isocyanates

Using HMDS as catalyst for the trimerization of isocyanates presents many advantages as the expected isocyanurate is not contaminated by the catalyst or other side-products resulting from its degradation. In addition, HMDS presents a low toxicity, and is compatible with industrial applications. This article describes the hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS)-catalyzed trimerization of octylisocyanate. Experimental investigations and mechanistic considerations indicate that the true catalyst of the trimerization is trimethylsilyloctylamine, which results from the preliminary condensation of HMDS with octylisocyanate.     

Design and application of Hadamard-injectors coupled with gas and supercritical fluid sample collection systems in Hadamard transform-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

A novel Hadamard transform-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HT-GC/MS) system equipped with on-line sample collection systems is described. A Hadamard-injector was successfully designed and then coupled with an on-line adsorption/desorption system for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and a supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) system, respectively, by HT-GC/MS. Six VOCs and three pesticides were used as model compounds. In the former case, an activated-charcoal trap was used to trap VOCs from the indoor air. After 10 L of indoor air had passed through the trap, the condensed components were heated and simultaneously injected into the GC column through the Hadamard-injector, based on Hadamard codes. In a second experiment, a sample of rice was spiked with three types of pesticides and the sample then extracted using a commercially available supercritical fluid extractor. After extraction, the extracted components were transferred to a holding tank and simultaneously injected into the GC column also using the Hadamard-injector. The findings show that, in both cases, the combination of on-line sample collection methods and the use of the Hadamard transform resulted in improved sensitivity and detection. Compared to the single injection used in most GC/MS systems, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios were substantially improved after inverse Hadamard transformation of the encoded chromatogram.     

Experimental validation of an effective carbon number-based approach for the gas chromatography–mass spectrometry quantification of ‘compounds lacking authentic standards or surrogates’

For the quantitative analysis of ‘compounds lacking authentic standards or surrogates’ (CLASS) in environmental media, we previously introduced an effective carbon number (ECN) approach to develop an empirical equation for the prediction of their response factor (RF). In this research, a series of laboratory experiments were carried out to benchmark the reliability of an ECN approach for sorbent tube/thermal desorption/gas chromatography (GC)/mass spectrometry (MS) applications. First, the ECN values were determined using external calibration data from 25 reference volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using two MS dectectors (quadrupole (Q) and time-of-flight (TOF)). Then, a certified standard mixture of 54 VOCs was analyzed by each system as a simulated unknown sample. The analytical bias, assessed in terms of percentage difference (PD) between the certified and ECN-predicted mass values, averaged 19.2 ± 16.1% (TOF-MS) and 28.2 ± 27.6% (Q-MS). The bias using a more simplified carbon number (CN)-based prediction increased considerably, yielding 53.4 ± 53.3% (TOF-MS) and 61.7 ± 81.3% (Q-MS). However, the bias obtained using the ECN-based prediction decreased significantly to yield average PD values of 9.84 ± 7.28% (TOF-MS) and 16.8 ± 8.35% (Q-MS), if the comparison was limited to 26 (out of 54) VOCs with CN ≥ 4 (i.e., 25 aromatics and hexachlorobutadiene).