Browsing by Subject "museum dust"

This study focuses on analyzing dust samples with gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometer. Humans get exposed to dust daily and it is important to know the risks this exposure brings. Dust is a complex, mainly organic matrix, which absorbs compounds easily. Some of these absorbed compounds have adverse effects on human health. To identify these harmful compounds from samples, they must be extracted into a solvent and possibly cleaned, so that they can be analyzed with gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer system. Analysis of dust samples requires the right gas chromatography column, which can separate analytes of interest and a mass spectrometer with an ion source that can be used to analyze the sample qualitatively and/or quantitatively depending on the depth and type of the study. Along with samples, standards are used in quality control of the analysis method and in finding limitations of the method. Methods and results of the studies used in this thesis are compiled into tables. Sources and health effects of found compounds are discussed. In the experimental part of the thesis, analysis of dust samples from Finnish museums was done for the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. These samples were concentrated and analyzed with gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer system. The system had calibration issues, which had to be solved before the data it provided was usable. After the calibration issue was fixed, the analysis results were obtained and studied. In these results many harmful compounds were found, of which many were related to the preservation of the items housed in the museums. The compounds' health effects were studied and tabulated. These results show that further studies are required for dust samples to avoid exposure to compounds found in them.