Air Organic Micropollutants Laboratory

The Laboratory of Organic Air Micropollutants (MOrA) place the main activities aimed at the optimization and implementation of the entire analytical process necessary for the characterization and determination of the impact of organic micropollutants in the environment and on human health. In particular, it deals with the preparation of the systems necessary for sampling and subsequent analytical characterization of pollutants.

Our monitoring tools allow you to conduct accurate surveys in both ambient air and indoor sites. The analyzed samples are mainly made up of atmospheric particulate collected on filters, deposition powders (dust), analytes adsorbed on solid matrices, and wet depositions (rain and snow). The classes of compounds of greatest interest include both traditional organic pollutants, such as PAHs, Nitro-PAHs, aliphatic hydrocarbons, fatty acids, as well as the new classes of emerging pollutants.

In this laboratory, standard analytical sampling methods are used, in the case of regulated pollutants, or new methods developed "ad hoc". The latter are aimed at improving the efficiency of the procedures or at evaluating new classes of interest that do not yet have reference methods (Emerging Pollutants). An example are the methods developed for the determination of psychotropic substances and drugs in the atmosphere and the setting up of the collection of deposition powders.

All the characterization phases involve particular techniques and instruments followed efficiently by highly specialized personnel. Given the chemical-physical characteristics of the compounds of interest, the main instrumental technique adopted is gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS / MS). The instruments are equipped with different types of sources (EI / CI), detectors (single quadrupole, triple quadrupole, high resolution) and injectors (SSL, PTV and on column) allowing to meet different needs regarding concentration levels and chemical properties of the investigated compounds.