The use of fumigants is imperative for protecting and ensuring the quality of foods for global distribution and consumption.  At any time, importing countries can confront industry with residue requirements for fumigants and fumigant by-products with the potential to terminate billions of dollars in trade.  Quantitation of fumigants has mostly relied on the use of gas chromatography methods coupled to various detectors that display selectivity, or higher sensitivity, towards certain volatile compounds and gases.  Detectors that are typically used for fumigant analysis include the flame ionization detector (FID), thermal conductivity detector (TCD), and the pulsed flame photometric detector (PFPD).  The use of a single detector, such as the barrier ionization discharge (BID) detector, can save time and money.  Five common fumigants including sulfuryl fluoride, phosphine, methyl bromide, propylene oxide and ethyl formate were analyzed using the commonly used detectors and the BID detector.  The BID detector showed strong linear correlation over large dynamic ranges for each fumigant allowing for simple quantitative methods to be developed.  The BID detector was able to detect and quantitate these common fumigants and shows marked promise as a single universal detector for fumigant analysis as well as calibrating the response of other detectors/sensors.

Gas chromatography with a barrier ionization discharge detector for analysis of postharvest fumigants

ACS Fall 2021

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