Abstract: A method was developed for the determination of methyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, butyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, ethyl methacrylate and butyl methacrylate in adhesives by headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS). The samples were treated at 100 ℃ for 30 min, then separated on a DB-WAX column (30 m×0.25 mm×0.25 μm) and determined by MS under selected ion monitoring mode and quantified by internal standard method. The established method showed good separation with the limits of detection (LODs, S/N=3) of 0.069~0.096 mg/kg and the limits of quantification (LOQs, S/N=10) of 0.23~0.32 mg/kg. The recoveries for acrylate monomers were in the range from 96.0% to 104.6% with the relative standard deviations less than 7.2%. The method is simple, accurate, rapid and highly sensitive. It can be applied to analyze the residual acrylates and methyl acrylates in adhesives.

Key words: residual acrylate monomers, adhesives, headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS)