How is a sample tested with an air sampling canister

[parisdre]

Hi,
Could you please tell me how would a GC-MS analyse an air sampling canister which was used to collect VOCs from an indoor environment?

[AICMM]

parisdre,

You could do a gas injection using a valve but the sensitivity will not be all that great. Or you can use a pre-concentrator where you would inject a larger amount of air onto a sorbent trap and then heat that trap with carrier flow across the trap and desorb the contents of the trap onto the GC system. For further information you could look at web sites for companies such as Markes or SIS which provide thermal desorbers that can be used with GC/MS systems.


Best regards.

[GD]

You need to use thermal desorption coupled with GC/MS. Thermal desorbers connect to all makes of GC, but check this out:
http://www.markes.com/en/instrumentation/airserver.aspx
For indoor use you might be better off looking at sampling onto sorbent tubes rather than canisters; depends on what analytes you are looking for