[en] The control of atmospheric emission discharges by food industries is classically achieved in two phases. The first one consists of sampling the target atmosphere followed by concentrating the volatile organic compounds (VOC) contained in a defined volume of this atmosphere on an adsorbing agent. These compounds are then thermally desorbed (TD) or desorbed with a solvent. In the second phase, the gas phase chromatogram (GC) will be coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) or flame ionization detector (FID) for compounds analysis. Quantitative analysis are usually achieved with solvent desorption followed by GC-FID. However, this mode imposes the dilution of the sample by a solvent and consequently may cause high detection thresholds as well as important matrix effect and possible interferences due to chemical reactions between analytes and the solvent. Besides, a preliminary qualitative analysis (GC-MS identification) is necessary.
Combining TD-GC-MS allows very low detection thresholds to be reached, and the matrix effect and the interferences caused by products of the reactions between analytes and the solvent to be eliminated. The use of this combination in selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode allows targeting analytes via their characteristic ions, increasing their sensitivity and repeatability insuring more accuracy for simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analysis. This technique was experimented for seeking VOC in the atmosphere around food industries.
