Methods for Determining Aldehydes in Air

Several reviews have been written on the various methods for the measurement of aldehydes in the environment [8,11,21]. These methods may be classified into two groups namely direct and indirect methods. Direct methods analyse the aldehydes during collection and therefore show great potential as the risk of sample contamination is greatly reduced. However, the cost and complexity of the instrumentation, as well as the properties of aldehydes make these methods, on the whole, unsuitable. Indirect methods, on the other hand, utilise these properties to improve ease of detection. Indirect methods analyse the aldehydes after they have been collected by some means. A brief summary of these methods that have been developed follows.