Langmuirian parameters for Tenax GC adsorption of airborne hydrocarbons and oxygenated compounds

Abstract : A study of the sampling conditions of diverse volatile aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons, ketones, eaters (acetates), aldehydes (crotonaldehyde) and alcohols (n-butanol) adsorbed on Tenax GC showed that the chromatographic behavior of these compounds can be modeled with a Langmuir isotherm. The equations derived from this model allow a description of the dependence between breakthrough volumes and atmospheric phase concentration of the adsorbates. They also indicate the breakthrough volumes at infinite dilution and the concentration thresholds requiring the application of Langmuir isotherms to avoid important quantitative sampling errors