In situ solid-phase microextraction and post on-fiber derivatization combined with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for determination of phenol in occupational air

A method based on solid-phase microextraction (SPME) followed by on-fiber derivatization and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry detection (GC–MS) for determination of phenol in air was developed. Three different types of SPME fibers, polar and non-polar poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were synthesized using sol–gel technology and their feasibility to the sampling of phenol were investigated. Different derivatization reagents for post on-fiber derivatization of phenol were studied. Important parameters influencing the extraction and derivatization process such as type of fiber coating, type and volume of derivatizing reagent, derivatization time and temperature, extraction time, and desorption conditions were investigated and optimized. The developed method is rapid, simple, easy and inexpensive and offers high sensitivity and reproducibility. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limit of the method was 5 ng L−1 using selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode. The inter-day and intra-day precisions of the developed method under optimized conditions were below 10%, and the method shows linearity in the range of 20 ng L−1 to 500 μg L−1with the correlation coefficient of >0.99. The optimized method was applied to the sampling of phenol from some biologics production areas. The compared results obtained using current and standard methods were shown to be satisfactory.

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► SPME was applied to the sampling and extraction of phenol from occupational air.
► The feasibility of sol–gel based fibers for on-site sampling has been demonstrated.
► SPME probe can be simply taken into the clean areas of sterile preparation.
► The entry of unnecessary equipment and personnel into the clean area is avoided.