Characterization of materials toward toluene traces detection for air quality monitoring and lung cancer diagnosis

The aim of this work was to identify a nanoporous material able to trap toluene traces in order to develop a gas detection device for indoor air quality monitoring or biomedical diagnosis. A set of various adsorbents such as zeolites and activated carbon microspheres was studied here. First a detailed characterization of their porous properties was performed by nitrogen adsorption. Then adsorption of toluene and other interfering compounds which can selectively adsorbed with it, such as water and carbon dioxide, was studied in order to select the most suitable material. Results revealed that the activated carbon microspheres W5 and the zeolite NaY, which exhibit high specific surface areas and large micropore volumes, are the best adsorbent materials to capture toluene present at very low concentration in the gas phase.