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.