Development of a plasma-assisted cataluminescence system for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes analysis.

A novel method has been proposed to enhance efficiency of cataluminescence reaction by applying a plasma-assisted cataluminescence (PA-CTL) system. The obtained results clearly indicated that the PA-CTL system exhibited substantially higher sensitivity for the detection of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) on the surface of nanosized ZrO(2). There are two distinctive advantages in the PA-CTL system; on one hand, the plasma activates the BTEX molecules for the detection, and on the other hand, the working temperature range of the catalytic reaction is lowered with the plasma assistance. A detection limit (LOD = 3sigma) of 20 ng mL(-1) was achieved for benzene in air samples. Using a graphite electrode in the designed plasma provides an additional opportunity for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) sampling of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on its surface followed by PA-CTL detection. This ability has been investigated for detection of m-xylene in air samples.