Monitoring biogenic volatile compounds emitted by Eucalyptus citriodora using SPME

A procedure to monitor BVOC emitted by living plants using SPME technique is presented. For this purpose, a glass sampling chamber was designed. This device was employed for the characterization of biogenic volatile compounds emitted by leaves of Eucalyptus citriodora. After extraction with SPME fibers coated wi th PDMS/ DVB, it was possible to identify or detect 33 compounds emitted by this plant. A semiquantitative approach was applied to monitor the behavior of the emitted BVOC during 9 days. Circadian profiles of the variation in the concentration of isoprene were plotted. Using diffusion-based SPME quantitation, a recently introduced analytical approach, with extraction times as short as 15 s, it was possible to quantify subparts-per-billion amounts of isoprene emitted by this plant.