Work

Nontargeted screening of air samples using TD-GC-HRMS to identify volatile compounds as markers of an industrial plant fire in Rouen, France

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: A few days after an accidental industrial fire in Rouen (France), passive sampling on thermodesorption tubes was performed from 09/30/2019 to 10/07/2019. Sampling of the gas phase was performed close to the combustion source one week after the fire emission, at the Pasteur site of Rouen University in Normandy and two parallel tubes, with Tenax® TA and Carbopack B&X sorbents, were used to be more exhaustive. Two identical samplings were carried out 18 and 26 months after the fire in the same place to evaluate the urban and in-house background noises. Analyses were performed using a thermodesorption gas chromatograph coupled to a hybrid quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometer (TD-GC-Q-Orbitrap) in full scan mode. Due to the selectivity, sensitivity, and high mass accuracy of the instrument, thousands of molecules were detected. A large number of hydrocarbons, alkylbenzenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were identified. Thirty-five specific molecules, most of which were sulfur compounds, were identified in the samples, and were annotated with good confidence regarding the suggested structures. A fire simulation was performed in a laboratory combustion chamber by burning mineral oil containing additives such as those present in the plant. The extracted ion mode was used to target the aforementioned molecules, and a large majority of them were found in the collected air during the fire simulation. Finally, 6 sulfur compounds, 2-acetylthiophene, 2-propionylthiophene, 2,2’-bithiophene, 3,3’-bithiophene, thieno[3,2-b]thiophene and di-tert-butyl-disulfide, and one oxygenated compound, 1,3,5-trioxane, were identified to be markers of the industrial fire in 2019 in Rouen, with the highest level of confidence. Moreover, 15 other sulfur compounds were also annotated with the level 2 of confidence. So, the identification of 22 specific molecules appears of primary importance for assessing the unregulated molecules emitted during this special fire and thereafter possibly evaluating the exposure of the population.

Source: Atmospheric Pollution Research

DOI: 10.1016/j.apr.2024.102328