Simple analysis of naphthalene in human whole blood and urine by headspace capillary gas chromatography with large-volume injection

Abstract  A very simple method for analysis of naphthalene in human whole blood and urine by headspace gas chromatography (GC) is presented. It does not require solid-phase microextraction or cryogenic trapping devices, but needs only a conventional capillary GC instrument with flame ionization detection. The advantage of the method is that as much as 5 ml of headspace vapor can be injected into a GC instrument in splitless mode for sensitive detection. After heating a diluted whole blood or urine sample containing naphthalene and 1-methylnaphthalene (internal standard, IS) in a 7.0-ml vial at 80°C for 30 min, 5 ml of the headspace vapor was drawn with a glass syringe and injected into the gas chromatograph. Before injection, the column temperature was set at 50°C to trap...