Development of a NO2 scrubber for accurate sampling of ambient levels of terpenes

The result of pumping air containing 56 ppb NO2 through a terpene-spiked adsorbent (90–130 ng, 90–100 ml min−1), Tenax TA, for 20 min (1.8–2.0 l) was that 8% of α-pinene, 7% of β-pinene, 21% of Δ3-carene and 5% of limonene were oxidised. In similar experiments with air containing 56 ppb O3, 3% of α-pinene, 4% of β-pinene, 10% of Δ3-carene and 38% of limonene were oxidised. Sampling a mixture of a terpene and NO2 using Tenax TA can give unwanted overestimation of the amount of reaction products from the terpene–NO2 reaction or underestimation of the original terpene levels. A scrubber was needed to reduce the problems caused by interfering reactions on the adsorbent of NO2 and to reduce discrimination of reactive compounds due to their relatively fast decay on the adsorbent. Several chemicals have been tested for their ability of removing NO2 and our objective was to develop a well functioning, reusable, easy to handle, easy manufactured NO2 scrubber. The result of the experiments was a scrubber consisting of two glass fibre filters coated with Na2SO3 assembled in a dust collector. The recovery of the terpenes through the scrubber varied between 75% and 97% at 15–75% relative humidity, and the scrubber is a one-use scrubber due to memory effects. The Na2SO3 scrubber could be stored in room air for at least one month without loosing the capacity of removing NO2.