Determination of Appropriate Conditions for Volatile Fatty Acids from Rubber Industrial Wastewater by GC-FID: Headspace Technique

The appropriate conditions of gas chromatography were developed and applied to the volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in from of acetic acid, propionic acid, and isobutyric acid analysis of wastewater from the rubber industry. The headspace technique was used for sample preparation. The purpose of this study is to find the appropiate preliminary conditions, and to identify an appropriate internal standard. The results showed that the linearity, instrumental precision and accuracy are preferable when using the commercially available mixed VFA standard solution to those obtained using the manually mixed standard solution. The chromatograph of VFA mixtures showed good separation by the HP-INNOVAX column. Quantification of VFAs in wastewater from the rubber industry was determined using an internal standard curve with crotonic acid as an internal standard. Crotonic acid performed better than butyric acid as an internal standard. Thus, these results provided evidence that this analytical method could be useful for routine monitoring of VFAs.