Factors Affecting Sensitivity and Stability of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Determined by Gas Chromatography Quadrupole Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

This study retrospectively analyzes the daily results of relative response factors (RRFs) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons detected by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Although instrumental routine maintenance can enhance the reliability of measurement, there is no quantitative study to investigate the effects of glass liner contamination, manifold temperature drop, and column degradation on deteriorating sensitivities and stabilities of RRFs. This study demonstrates that by removing the contribution of outliners to the background level, great reductions of RRFs were achieved. Although several factors potentially undermined the analyzer's confidence on data reliability, there were no significant differences on the relative sensitivities of RRFs.

Keywords:

• Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS)
• ion trap
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• quadropole
• relative response factor (RRF)

The authors thank the National Center of Excellence for Environmental and Hazardous Waste Management–PSU Satellite Center, Prince of Songkla University, for the continued financial support of this work.

Notes

∗(S: Significant, NS: Non-Significant).

∗(S: Significant, NS: Non-Significant).