Determination of volatile organic compounds in eucalyptus fast pyrolysis bio-oil by full evaporation headspace gas chromatography

Publication date: 1 January 2018
Source:Talanta, Volume 176
Author(s): Nathalya Kosinski Lima, André Romualdo Lopes, Palimecio Gimenes Guerrero, Carlos Itsuo Yamamoto, Fabricio Augusto Hansel
This paper reports a full evaporation (FE) headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) method for the determination of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in bio-oil (i.e. methanol, ethanol, acetone, acetic acid and furfural). The method uses a 4μL sample of bio-oil in a headspace vial (ca. 20mL). Complete evaporation of the compounds was achieved after seven minutes at 90°C. The method showed good precision and accuracy for methanol, ethanol, acetone and acetic acid. The recovery of furfural was low (74.3%). The results showed that the protocol can be applied for the determination of methanol, ethanol, acetone and acetic acid in bio-oil. Detection limits ranged from 0.13 to 0.16μg. Acetic acid was the dominant analyte in the heavy bio-oil and light bio-oil analysis (113. 3 and 85.1µgmg⁻¹, respectively), followed by methanol, ethanol, and acetone. The polymerisation of furfural was suspected as the cause of its poor quantification.

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