TY - JOUR

T1 - Monitoring of selected skin- and breath-borne volatile organic compounds emitted from the human body using gas chromatography ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS)

AU - Mochalski, Paweł

AU - Wiesenhofer, Helmut

AU - Allers, Maria

AU - Zimmermann, Stefan

AU - Güntner, Andreas T.

AU - Pineau, Nicolay J.

AU - Lederer, Wolfgang

AU - Agapiou, Agapios

AU - Mayhew, Christopher A.

AU - Ruzsanyi, Veronika

N1 - Funding information: [ This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 644031. PM and VR gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) for the program KIRAS Security Research under the grant DHS-AS 859586. ATG and NJP were generously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 200021_159763/1). This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 644031 . PM and VR gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) for the program KIRAS Security Research under the grant DHS-AS 859586 . ATG and NJP were generously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 200021_159763/1 ).

PY - 2018/2/15

Y1 - 2018/2/15

N2 - Human smuggling and associated cross-border crimes have evolved as a major challenge for the European Union in recent years. Of particular concern is the increasing trend of smuggling migrants hidden inside shipping containers or trucks. Therefore, there is a growing demand for portable security devices for the non-intrusive and rapid monitoring of containers to detect people hiding inside. In this context, chemical analysis of volatiles organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from the human body is proposed as a locating tool. In the present study, an in-house made ion mobility spectrometer coupled with gas chromatography (GC-IMS) was used to monitor the volatile moieties released from the human body under conditions that mimic entrapment. A total of 17 omnipresent volatile compounds were identified and quantified from 35 ion mobility peaks corresponding to human presence. These are 7 aldehydes (acrolein, 2-methylpropanal, 3-methylbutanal, 2-ethacrolein, n-hexanal, n-heptanal, benzaldehyde), 3 ketones (acetone, 2-pentanone, 4-methyl-2-pentanone), 5 esters (ethyl formate, ethyl propionate, vinyl butyrate, butyl acetate, ethyl isovalerate), one alcohol (2-methyl-1-propanol) and one organic acid (acetic acid). The limits of detection (0.05–7.2 ppb) and relative standard deviations (0.6–11%) should be sufficient for detecting these markers of human presence in field conditions. This study shows that GC-IMS can be used as a portable field detector of hidden or entrapped people.

AB - Human smuggling and associated cross-border crimes have evolved as a major challenge for the European Union in recent years. Of particular concern is the increasing trend of smuggling migrants hidden inside shipping containers or trucks. Therefore, there is a growing demand for portable security devices for the non-intrusive and rapid monitoring of containers to detect people hiding inside. In this context, chemical analysis of volatiles organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from the human body is proposed as a locating tool. In the present study, an in-house made ion mobility spectrometer coupled with gas chromatography (GC-IMS) was used to monitor the volatile moieties released from the human body under conditions that mimic entrapment. A total of 17 omnipresent volatile compounds were identified and quantified from 35 ion mobility peaks corresponding to human presence. These are 7 aldehydes (acrolein, 2-methylpropanal, 3-methylbutanal, 2-ethacrolein, n-hexanal, n-heptanal, benzaldehyde), 3 ketones (acetone, 2-pentanone, 4-methyl-2-pentanone), 5 esters (ethyl formate, ethyl propionate, vinyl butyrate, butyl acetate, ethyl isovalerate), one alcohol (2-methyl-1-propanol) and one organic acid (acetic acid). The limits of detection (0.05–7.2 ppb) and relative standard deviations (0.6–11%) should be sufficient for detecting these markers of human presence in field conditions. This study shows that GC-IMS can be used as a portable field detector of hidden or entrapped people.

KW - Entrapped victims

KW - GC-IMS

KW - Human occupancy detection

KW - Human smuggling

KW - Ion mobility spectrometry

KW - Volatile organic compounds

KW - Limit of Detection

KW - Reproducibility of Results

KW - Skin/metabolism

KW - Humans

KW - Middle Aged

KW - Male

KW - Volatile Organic Compounds/analysis

KW - Young Adult

KW - Adult

KW - Female

KW - Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/methods

KW - Breath Tests/methods

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041312403&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jchromb.2018.01.013

DO - 10.1016/j.jchromb.2018.01.013

M3 - Article

C2 - 29396365

AN - SCOPUS:85041312403

VL - 1076

SP - 29

EP - 34

JO - Journal of Chromatography B: Analytical Technologies in the Biomedical and Life Sciences

JF - Journal of Chromatography B: Analytical Technologies in the Biomedical and Life Sciences

SN - 1570-0232

ER -