Simultaneous determination of aliphatic and aromatic amines in indoor and outdoor air samples by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method has been proposed for the simultaneous determination of aliphatic and aromatic amines in indoor and outdoor air samples. The method includes pre-concentration of the compounds by percolating the air samples through the acidic solution, ion-pair extraction with bis-2-ethylhexylphosphate (BEHPA), derivatisation of compounds with isobutyl chloroformate (IBCF) and their GC-MS analysis. Aliphatic and aromatic amines were isolated from aqueous samples using BEHPA as ion-pair reagent and derivatised with IBCF for their chromatographic analysis. Aliphatic and aromatic amines were then analysed with GC-MS in both electron impact (EI) and positive and negative ion chemical ionisation (PNICI) mode as their isobutyloxycarbonyl (isoBOC) derivatives. The obtained recoveries ranged from 75.6 to 96.8% and the precision of this method, as indicated by the relative standard deviations (R.S.D.) was within the range of 1.0-4.4%. The detection limits obtained from calculations by using GC-MS results based on S/N: 3 were within the range of 0.08-0.01 ng/m³.