Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) contribute to ground-level ozone production, a pollutant that can cause respiratory ailments such as lung inflammation in addition to contributing climate change. We seek to quantitate (Z) 3-hexenyl acetate and (Z) 3-hexen-1-ol, which are released by cut and uncut grass in order to better understand their human health and environmental impacts. We use Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME) couple with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to extract and analyze the VOCs Time resolved experiments showed increasing emissions form the cut grass compared to the uncut grass for both (Z) 3-hexenyl acetate and (Z) 3-hexen-1-ol. We observe variations in emissions, possibly due to weather, timing in which the grass was cut, or the bruising of the uncut grass. We report the daily average release of (Z) 3-hexenyl acetate and (Z) 3-hexen-1-ol per m2 for both cut and uncut grass.

Quantification of VOCs emitted from cut and uncut grass

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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