Fast detection of preservatives on waste wood with GC/MS, GC-ECD and ion mobility spectrometry

Large amounts of waste wood have to be separated into contaminated material containing wood preservatives and wood ready for reuse, according to the planned German federal legislation for recycling. Therefore three different methods for the detection of wood preservatives on wood waste are presented and compared. A battery-powered ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) device has been equipped with a thermal desorption chamber for the analysis of small pieces of preserved wood samples. The results obtained with this new instrument are compared to those of a mobile GC/MS system and a portable, multicapillary GC-ECD instrument, both equipped with direct thermal desorption injection devices. In this comparison the IMS device emerges favorably. Compound identification by ion mobility spectra, a short analysis time of less than 1 minute without sample treatment, low cost per analysis and good portability of the equipment are the advantages of IMS. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.