TargetView application: Plasterboard
Chemical emissions from construction products such as plasterboard, laminate flooring, etc.
 Target compound location using TargetView software
In many industries, e.g. plasterboard production, the need to measure trace compound emissions from products and materials is growing in response to new regulations.
Such analyses typically involve (micro-)chamber sampling, followed by TD-GC/MS analysis. These can yield complex data that might be difficult for a non-specialist to interpret.
To address the regulations and simplify data, an advanced, automated software package (TargetView) has been developed. TargetView clearly and reliably identifies the presence of target compounds automatically from complex GC/MS data.
Analytical conditions
Samples of plasterboard were extracted in a Micro-Chamber/Thermal Extractor™ (µ-CTE™) from Markes International Ltd, and the emissions collected onto thermal desorption sorbent tubes. These tubes were subsequently thermally desorbed on a Markes UNITY 2™ thermal desorption unit connected to a GC/MS (6890/5973) from Agilent Technologies.
TargetView software was used to process the resultant data - A target library containing several hundred compounds of interest to material emissions testing (including ‘LCIs’ from the German AgBB scheme) was applied.
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µ-CTE:
- 44 mm diameter circular plasterboard samples
- Sampling conditions:
- Chamber temp: 50°C
- Flow rate: 100 mL/min
- Emissions collected for 12 mins
- Sorbent: Tenax® TA
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UNITY 2:
- TD- split: 25:1
- Tube desorb: 5 minutes 300 °C
- Trap: 0 °C - 300 °C (100 °C/sec)
- Flow path: 200 °C
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GC/MS
- Oven: 50 °C (2 minutes) 20 °C / min to 300 °C (6 min)
- Column: 30m x 0.25 id, x 0.25 DB-5
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Results
TargetView processes the GC/MS data and is able to pick out trace-level compounds which are hiding in the background, or compounds that are co-eluting with others. This analysis, for example, has confidently detected trimethyl benzene (match coefficient of 0.98) despite the fact that it is co-eulting with several other compounds.
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TargetView identification of trimethyl benzene in a plasterboard sample
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TargetView generates a post-run report showing either target hits or all compounds found (unknowns can be searched in an established library, e.g. NIST).
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Automated post-run report generation identifying target compounds. The data can be sorted by "target hits only" or by all components
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Conclusions
Despite the complexity of the sample and the trace levels of some target compounds, TargetView automatically picks these out from the rest and generates a useful list.
This simple, rapid generation of results equates to saving time and cost for a product manufacturer.
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