SORPTION BEHAVIOR OF ORGANIC MOLECULES ON POROUS PAPER MATERIAL

The application of paper in a large range of fields is highly desired because it has a variety of favorable characteristics. Especially in the sector of food packaging, paper has found unique applications. In order to determine the applicability of a desired product, the interaction of the paper surface with different chemicals needs to be understood. In this work, adsorption/desorption experiments of volatile organic compounds from paper samples were studied. Several factors that could influence the adsorption/desorption behavior were investigated. The method is based on headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography flame ionization detection (HS-SPME-GC/FID) or mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC/MS). It was shown that the polar model compounds are much stronger adsorbed on the paper than the nonpolar ones. An influence of the chemical nature of the paper samples was observed, the more hydrophilic the paper, the more polar compounds adsorb. By increasing the humidity, the sorption rates significantly decreased.