Published:Journal of Chromatographic Science,
ISSN 0021-9665Volume
41, Number 2, February 2003, pp. 63-66
Sensitive Analysis of Alkyl Alcohols as Decomposition Products
of Alkyl Nitrites in Human Whole Blood and Urine by Headspace Capillary GC
with Cryogenic Oven Trapping
Kanako Watanabe-Suzuki*, Hideki Nozawa, and Osamu Suzuki
Department of Legal Medicine, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, 1-20-1
Handayama, Hamamatsu 431-3192, Japan
Akira Ishii
Department of Legal Medicine, Fujita Health University School of Medicine,
1-98 Dengakugakubo, Kutsukake-cho, Toyoake City, Aichi 470-1192, Japan
The abuse of alkyl nitrites is becoming a serious social problem
worldwide. In this report, a simple and sensitive method is presented for the
determination of n-butyl alcohol, isobutyl alcohol, and isoamyl alcohol as
decomposition products of alkyl nitrites in human whole blood and urine samples
using capillary gas chromatography (GC) with cryogenic oven trapping. After
heating a whole blood or urine sample containing each alkyl alcohol and t-butyl
alcohol [the internal standard (IS)] in a 7-mL vial at 55°C for 15 min,
5 mL of the headspace vapor is drawn into a gas-tight syringe and injected
into a GC inlet port. The vapor is introduced into an Rtx-BAC2 medium-bore
capillary column in the splitless mode at 0°C oven temperature in order
to trap the entire analytes, and then the oven temperature is programmed up
to 240°C for the GC measurements by flame ionization detection. These conditions
give sharp peaks for each compound and the IS and low background noise for
whole blood or urine samples. The detection limits of the analytes are 10 ng/mL
for whole blood and 5 ng/mL for urine. Linearity and precision are also tested
to confirm the reliability of this method. Isobutyl alcohol and methemoglobin
could be determined from the whole blood samples of three male volunteers who
had sniffed isobutyl nitrite.
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