Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies a determination of formaldehyde (HCHO) and other carbonyl compounds (aldehydes and ketones) in air. The method is specific to formaldehyde but, with modification, at least 12 other aromatic as well as saturated and unsaturated aliphatic carbonyl compounds can be detected and quantified. It is suitable for determination of formaldehyde and other carbonyl compounds in the approximate concentration range 1 µg/m3 to 1 mg/m3. The sampling method gives a time-weighted average (TWA) sample. It can be used for long-term (1 h to 24 h) or short-term (5 min to 60 min) sampling of air for formaldehyde.

This document specifies a sampling and analysis procedure for formaldehyde and other carbonyl compounds that involves collection from air on to adsorbent cartridges coated with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) and subsequent analysis of the hydrazones formed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with detection by ultraviolet absorption[1][7]. This document applies to the determination of:

acetaldehyde acetone benzaldehyde butyraldehyde capronaldehyde 2,5-dimethylbenzaldehyde formaldehyde isovaleraldehyde propionaldehyde m-tolualdehyde o-tolualdehyde p-tolualdehyde valeraldehyde

This method is not suitable for longer chained or unsaturated carbonyl compounds such as acrolein. An alternative sampling method using sorbent tubes and analysis by thermal desorption GC-MS is given in Annex A.