The Dynamic Headspace (DHS) technique is a combined extraction, concentration, and GC-introduction technique for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from liquid or solid samples. Volatile compounds are purged from the headspace of the sample using a controlled flow of inert gas. The purged VOCs are trapped and concentrated on a replaceable adsorbent-filled trap, which is subsequently thermally desorbed in the GERSTEL Thermal Desorption Unit (TDU) followed by GC/MS determination of the analytes.

The traditional static Headspace technique relies on an equilibrium being established between the sample phase and the Headspace. By actively purging the Headspace phase and re-trapping analytes, the DHS technique provides significantly improved recovery and therefore significantly lower detection limits. Even compared with Headspace-SPME, DHS will yield much lower detection limits for most compounds. This is due to the much higher capacity of the DHS trap as well as the active purging and agitation and that enable efficient extraction of much larger sample volumes than those normally employed for SPME analysis. Further, the DHS technique enables the determination of compounds of a wide range of polarities in one step without having to resort to different adsorbents. Since only the gas phase is purged, there is no risk of foam formation and subsequent system contamination.

DHS is an efficient analysis technique, for example for samples from the fields of Foods, Flavours and Personal Care products.

Applications