Development of a sensitive thermal desorption method for the determination of trihalomethanes in humid ambient and alveolar air

A sensitive and reliable method has been developed for the determination of trihalomethanes (THMs) in air samples through adsorption in sorbent tubes and thermal desorption (TD) of the compounds, followed by gas chromatography (GC)–mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. Three commercial sorbent materials were compared in terms of adsorption efficiency and breakthrough volume, finding Chromosorb 102 to be the most appropriate adsorbent for air sampling. The method allows us to reach detection limits of 0.03 ng (0.01 μg m−3 for 3 l of air), linear ranges from 0.1 to 2000 ng and specific uncertainties of ca. 5.0 ± 0.2 ng for all THMs. Several salts were tested to reduce water retention (from the humid air of an indoor swimming pool) at the sampling stage, Na2SO4 being the one that provides optimum efficiency. The method was validated by a new recovery study in which several tubes with and without adsorbent were spiked with THMs and analyzed by TD-GC/MS, recoveries ranging from 92% to 97% for all the compounds. Finally, the performance of the method was evaluated through the analysis of ambient air samples from an indoor swimming pool and alveolar air samples from swimmers to assess their THM uptake. THMs were found to be stable in the sorbent tubes for at least 1 month when stored at 4 °C.