Recovery of some common solvents from protective clothing breakthrough indicator pads by microwave–solvent extraction and gas chromatography

Abstract

The efficiency of solvent adsorption using Permea-Tec general solvent pads, used for the detection of chemical breakthrough of protective clothing, was determined for methanol, acetone, ethyl methyl ketone, trichloroethylene (TriCE), tetrachloroethylene (TetCE), toluene, m-xylene, and D-limonene. Known volumes of single or mixed solvents were added to pads in the range 0.2–5.0 µl (0.16–8.13 µg). After microwave–solvent extraction (ME) into hexan-1-ol, the samples (0.5–3.0 µl) of the filtered and extracted solutions were analyzed by gas chromatography. All solvents exhibited >97% adsorption on the pads at spiking levels of 0.48–0.98 µg for each solvent. The solvent recovery for the system was calculated for each solvent, with solvents with boiling points below 110 °C showing recoveries of >90%, and with solvents with boiling points above 110 °C showing recoveries from 80 to 90%. The recovery precision was good (RSD ≤4%) for all solvents over the range 1.0–2.5 µl of applied solvents to pads for ME and 1.0 µl of extracted solutions for GC analysis.

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