Abstract

In this poster, we present the concept and the workflow of a novel mobile measuring system for the simultaneous analysis of gaseous and condensed/bound volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) in ambient aerosols. The concept allows stand-alone, fully-automated and parallel sampling of the particulate matter (PM) and gaseous phase and its subsequently and successive analysis by thermal desorption combined to gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Collected PM and gas phase compounds are desorbed on individual units. The PM desorption unit is designed for an on-line derivatization of polar organic compounds before desorption. A PAL based robotic unit is used for handling of collected samples and the instrument is able to operate autonomously and remotely for at least 24 h with up to hourly time resolution. The possibility to automatically exchange between the different modules together with the high-resolution time combined with sensitive analytics make the system a useful tool for long-term field measurements of ambient air.