The Industrial Safety and Health Act in Japan has established guideline values for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor workplace air; however, because the physicochemical properties of these VOCs are diverse, appropriate analytical methods have not yet been developed. Here we performed recovery tests to simultaneously measure VOCs and to optimize the analytical parameters (the extraction solvents and their mixture ratio) of a commercial activated carbon–silica gel active sampler. In the recovery tests, 46 VOCs were added to the adsorbents of the sampler (activated carbon and silica gel) at three concentration levels relative to the guideline values (0.5×, 1×, and 2×); we then extracted the VOCs from the absorbents by using various mixtures of acetone and carbon disulfide. The mixture comprising 80% acetone and 20% carbon disulfide was the best solvent overall for extracting the 46 tested VOCs from the adsorbents in the sampler; this mixture achieved adequate recovery rates (within the range of 80 to 120%) for 40 (87%) of the targeted VOCs.

日本的《工业安全与健康法》为室内工作场所空气中的挥发性有机化合物 (VOC) 制定了指导值；然而，由于这些 VOC 的理化性质多种多样，因此尚未开发出合适的分析方法。在这里，我们进行了回收率测试，以同时测量 VOC 并优化商用活性炭-硅胶活性采样器的分析参数（萃取溶剂及其混合比例）。在回收率测试中，采样器的吸附剂（活性炭和硅胶）中添加了相对于指导值（0.5×、1×和2×）三个浓度水平的46种VOCs；然后我们使用丙酮和二硫化碳的各种混合物从吸收剂中提取 VOC。包含 80% 丙酮和 20% 二硫化碳的混合物是从采样器中的吸附剂中提取 46 种测试 VOC 的最佳溶剂；该混合物对 40 (87%) 种目标 VOC 实现了足够的回收率（在 80% 到 120% 的范围内）。