Applicability of Silicone Membrane Passive Samplers for Monitoring of Indoor Air Quality

Abstract

ABSTRACT A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the permeability of membranes made of silicone foil with respect to selected volatile organic compounds such as butanol, benzene, toluene, butyl acetate, ethylbenzene, m- xylene, styrene, m- dichlorobenzene. On the basis of model experiments the calibration constants k for 18 passive samplers were determined (with respect to each compound present in the gaseous standard mixture). The obtained calibration constants found are characterised by good precision (except for butanol, relative standard deviation are not greater than 9%). The comparison of the calibration constants for the samplers with silicone membrane of 50 μm thick with those obtained for samplers with polyethylene membrane of 15.5 μm shows that silicone membrane samplers will give higher enrichment factors for the compounds studied.