Identification of alkyl dinitrates in ambient air of Central Europe

Abstract

Bifunctional organic nitrates – organic esters of nitric acid – are part of the pool of components of odd nitrogen (NO_Y) in the atmosphere. In this paper, we report the identification of dinitrates in ambient air of Central Europe (Ulm, Germany). The organic nitrates were sampled by adsorptive high volume sampling of 100 m³ of air with 100 g precleaned silica. Sample preparation and group separation was performed by NP-HPLC. Separation and detection was done by HRGC/EI-MSD. We have extended the identification of dinitrates in ambient air to a number of 30, of which only five have been reported by other authors before. To our knowledge, this is the first time that 13 non-vicinal dinitrates and two branched dinitrates have been identified in ambient air. Four organic nitrates have never been reported before: the non-vicinal 1,3-dinitrooxy-pentane (1,3C5), the two branched 2-methyl-1,2-dinitrooxy-propane (2M1,2C3) and 2-methyl-2,3-dinitrooxy-butane (2M2,3C4), and one diastereomer of 3,4-dinitrooxy-hexane (RR/SS-3,4C6). We are also assigning the configuration of the two diastereomers of 2,4-dinitrooxy-pentane (2,4C5) found in air before using reference standards obtained by enantioselective synthesis.