Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (17)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrowScopus Links
Right arrowCiting Articles via CrossRef
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Groves, W. A.
Right arrow Articles by Zellers, E. T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Groves, W. A.
Right arrow Articles by Zellers, E. T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Ann. occup. Hyg., Vol. 45, No. 8, pp. 609-623, 2001
© 2001 British Occupational Hygiene Society
Published by Oxford University Press

Analysis of solvent vapors in breath and ambient air with a surface acoustic wave sensor array

William A. Groves and Edward T. Zellers

Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 4801-2029, USA Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA

Current address: Industrial Health and Safety Program, Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-5000. Tel.: +1-814-863-1618; Fax: +1-814-865-3248

Received 18 August, 2000; Accepted 15 December, 2000.

This article describes the development and evaluation of a small prototype instrument employing an array of four polymer-coated surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors for rapid analysis of organic solvent vapors in exhaled breath and ambient air. A thermally desorbed adsorbent preconcentrator within the instrument is used to increase sensitivity and compensate for background water vapor. Calibrations were performed for breath and dry nitrogen samples in Tedlar bags spiked with 16 individual solvents and selected binary mixtures. Responses were linear over the 50- to 400-fold concentration ranges examined and mixture responses were additive. The resulting library of vapor calibration response patterns was used with extended disjoint principal components regression and a probabilistic artificial neural network to develop vapor-recognition algorithms. In a subsequent analysis of an independent data set all individual vapors and most binary mixture components were correctly identified and were quantified to within 25% of their actual concentrations. Limits of detection for a 0.25 l. sample collected over a 2.5-min period were <0.3xTLV for 14 of the 16 vapors based on the criterion that all four sensors show a detectable response. Results demonstrate the feasibility of this technology for workplace analysis of breath and ambient air.

volatile organic compounds; breath analysis; surface acoustic wave sensor; biological monitoring; sensor array


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.