| Abstract [eng] |
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemical compounds constantly surrounding us in our everyday environments. Exposure to a high concentration of those compounds could cause concerning health and environmental problems. Their study and constant monitoring are important for air quality control, both indoors and outdoors. In addition to that, the study of their emissions from food can be useful to determine possible fraud or contamination. Moreover, the study of VOCs emitted from human breath could be used as a tool for disease diagnosis. Self-modified LDPE bags were developed as the perfect cheap, easy to use, and reliable system for the purpose of human breath VOCs collection. Thermal desorption coupled to gas chromatography mass spectrometry (TD/GC-MS) system was the methodology used for the analysis and identification of the collected VOCs. Human breath samples were collected and analysed to understand the VOCs profile and its variations depending on several factors. An innovative calibration method was created for quantification of toxic compounds present in breath, coming from food ingestion. The same developed system for human breath was employed for the collection of VOCs from food emissions for the discrimination of different species of peanuts and coffee blends. Air samples from several environments were analysed to study the diverse VOCs profiles. |
