Abstract: A novel determination method for trace of seven phenol compounds in air samples has been established. They were collected with Tenax adsorption tube (180 mm×60 mm glass tube packed with 150 mg Tenax (4060 mesh)) and desorbed with methanol. Five microlitres of naphthalene-D8 (internal standard) solution was added to the eluate. One microlitre of the mixture solution was injected into an HP-5MS capillary column (30 m×0.25 mm×0.25 μm) and determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring (GC-MS/SIM). The selected ions were m/z 94, 95, 66, 108, 107, 77, 90, 122, 121, 107 and 136. The quantitative ions, m/z 94 for phenol, m/z 108 for cresol, m/z 122 for xylenol and m/z 136 for internal standard, were selected. The average recoveries of phenol compounds (spiked at the levels of 0.25, 1.00, 5.00 μg) ranged from 92.4% to 102% and the relative standard deviations were less than 4.8%. When the air sample volume was 10 L, the detection limits were less than 0.001 mg/m3. Good linearities were observed in the range from 0.05 to 20.0 mg/L. The method is simple, fast, sensitive and accurate for the determination of phenol compounds in air samples.

Key words: air sample , gas chromatography-mass spectrometry （GC-MS）, phenol compounds, Tenax adsorption tube