Optimising cell temperature and dispersion field strength for the screening for putrescine and cadaverine with thermal desorption-gas chromatography-differential mobility spectrometry

An amine test atmosphere generator was constructed and produced stable concentrations of putrescine (7 mg m−3) and cadaverine (4 mg m−3) vapours at 50 ± 0.5 °C. Tenax TA-Carbotrap adsorbent tubes were used to sample putrescine and cadaverine vapour standards and a linear response function over the range of sample masses 5-20 ng was obtained at 15.0 kV cm−1 115 °C, with a R2 of 0.99 for both putrescine and cadaverine. The sample mass at the limit of detection was estimated to be 3 ng for putrescine and cadaverine. Preliminary data from sampling the headspace of chicken meat revealed a 62% increase in the recovered masses of putrescine from 0.84 to 1.36 ng in the sampled air.