The work of Chen and Yang [10] on VOC determination in textiles showed that
toluene, xylenes and styrene can be qualitatively analyzed
by headspace combined with SPME, and the test feature
detection limits were less than 0.05 mg/kg. However, the
headspace adopted in open literature was always low
capacity vials (2–20 mL), with only small textile samples
employed. Hence, this detection of VOCs in textiles has
problems in determining their actual release levels due to
the inevitable non-uniformity of the textiles. If a large
capacity headspace could be used, a large sample could be
employed to enhance test sample uniformity and simultaneously
increase the detection lower limit for some VOCs.
In this paper, a high capacity headspace (2000 mL) was
firstly employed to qualitatively determine VOC residues in
textiles: six specific substances (toluene, vinylcyclohexene,
styrene, 4-phenylcyclohexene, vinylchloride and butadiene)
and TVOCs, according to the requirement of Oeko-
Tex Standard 100. The relationship between the detection
performance of headspace–SPME–GC/MS and various
target VOCs is also discussed.