Technical note: Identification and quantification of gaseous and particulate organic compounds from cooking fumes by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract. As a significant source of indoor and outdoor pollutants, cooking fumes have a great impact on air quality and human health. However, the limited identification and quantification techniques hinder the comprehensive understanding of the complex cooking fumes with wide volatility and polarity. Herein we applied thermal desorption comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (TD-GCxGC-MS) for synchronous analysis of gaseous and particulate organics emitted from cooking fumes. With a systematic 4-step qualitative procedure and precise quantitative and semi-quantitative method, 170 and 352 compounds from C2 (acetic acids) – C30 (squalene) occupying 95 % and 90 % of the total ion current for gaseous and particulate samples were identified and quantified. For most compounds, the correlation coefficient (R²) is >0.9, and the relative standard deviation (RSD, n=5) of three concentration levels (low, medium, high) is within 10 %. For the semi-quantification, the total uncertainty is ~27 %. Compared with gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and proton transfer time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS), TD-GCxGC-MS detects more compounds, especially the diagnostic tracers related to cooking oil and matierial, and additives added during cooking and secondary products transformed from carbonyls and acids. Hence, TD-GCxGC-MS provides plenty of perspectives to analyze the primary emission and secondary formation from cooking at a molecular level.