Determination of Aldehydes and Ketones Pollutants in Ambient and Polluted Air by HPLC with Precolumn Chemical Derivatization

In the last years, aldehydes and ketones have been the pollutants constantly in air with the development of the chemical industry. Most of aldehydes and ketones are toxic or carcinogenic. There are six carbonyl compounds in the pollutants with the maximum permission concentration, which limited by our state standard in residential area, workshop air and surface water formulated in 1979. In New Clean Air Act of America, there are 189 toxic and harmful pollutants including nine carbonyl compounds.Therefore, it is extremely necessary to study the sampling process and analytical method of aldehydes and ketones. At present, the main domestic analytical methods are colorimetric method and titrimetric method. In addition, ion chromatography and gas chromatography are also adopted. These methods can only be used for the analysis of one or two kinds of aldehydes and ketones. The absorbent solutions in these methods includes acidic sulfate, potassium hydroxide,water and weak acid. Because the reaction of these absorbent solutions and carbonyl compounds has no specificity, the selectivity and sensitivity of these methods are often low. Thus, the application of these methods in analysis of actual samples are limited greatly.