Qualitative Analysis of Organic and Inorganic Components in Indoor Particulate Matter using Gas Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Scanning Electron Microscopy
General
Health effects of indoor particulate matter (PM) are not sufficiently studied although PM levels are likely to be higher indoors than outdoors. Indoor PM is a mixture of particles infiltrating externally and generating internally, composed of inorganic and organic components. Indoor PM, which is absorbable into human body, is considered 10 µm or less in size. Therefore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion X-ray spectrometry (EDS) are effective for analysis of its inorganic components, while gas chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) are effective for analysis of its organic components.
The JMS-T2000GC, an GC-HRMS system which supports both field ionization (FI) and electron ionization (EI), incorporates a common ion source capable of switching between the EI and FI modes while keeping the system in a vacuum. msFineAnalysis AI, designed to analyze the data acquired by the 2 ionization methods and estimate chemical structures as well as compositions, is effective in identifying organic components.
In this work, we examined the chemical composition and structure of organic particles in indoor PM using a JMS-T2000GC with msFineAnalysis AI. We also identified the configuration and elemental composition of inorganic particles by SEM-EDS analysis using a JSM-IT800is, providing a comprehensive analysis of the composition of indoor PM.