Headspace-Liquid Phase Microextraction for Attenuated Total Reflection Infrared Determination of Volatile Organic Compounds at Trace Levels

A combination of headspace (HS) sampling and liquid phase microextraction (LPME) has been successfully developed to solve sensitivity problems in attenuated total reflection (ATR) infrared determination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The HS sampling facilitates the selective extraction of the target volatile analytes from the sample matrix, while the liquid phase microextraction allows their preconcentration prior to infrared analysis. The direct determination of extracted analytes in the acceptor solvent provides high preconcentration factors of the order of 200 with a reduced consumption of organic solvents and a minimum generation of wastes, being thus the developed methodology a green alternative method. The qualitative and quantitative capability of the proposed approach has been evaluated on the basis of two different examples: (i) screening of benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX) compounds in soil samples and (ii) quantitative determination of toluene in cosmetic nail products.