Home-made thermal desorption unit as an aid in gas chromatographic/mass spectormetric identification of environmental pollutants

The design, assembly and operation of a home-made thermal desorption unit is described. A special effort was made to obtain a system which does not require a substantial modification of the standard split/splitless inlet port of the gas chromatograph. As a consequence, a change-over to the split/splitless analysis of liquid samples can be done quickly and easily, thereby improving the cost-effectiveness of analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Its analytical performance is shown to be adequate for both identification and determination of trace components.