Jet Propellant 8 (JP-8) jet fuel is a kerosene-based fuel containing hundreds of hydrocarbons used by the military in NATO countries. Previous rodent inhalation studies carried out with aerosolized JP-8 never evaluated the exposure chamber atmosphere. For this reason, our laboratory developed an analytical method, with an accuracy of better than 80% and precision of better than 20%, for JP-8 aerosol and vapor samples using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). A method was developed for quantification of selected individual components of JP-8 and for the total amount of JP-8 in aerosolized fuel. A 34 component surrogate hydrocarbon mixture (SHM) was developed and used for simultaneous analysis of the individual components. Three separate runs containing a standard curve and five replicates each at the selected concentrations were analyzed for both the SHM and neat JP-8. The resulting interday accuracy (100 - percent relative error) and precision (relative standard deviation) values for the SHM were 86.5% or better and 8.0% or better, respectively. The intraday accuracy and precision values ranged from 99.29% to 84.50% and 0.97% to 12.4%, respectively. For the total amount of JP-8 in aerosol and vapor, the interday accuracy was 83.7% or better and interday precision was 7.0% or better. The intraday accuracy and precision values ranged from 94.8% to 80.4% and 2.4% to 10.5%, respectively. We then used this method to analyze samples collected from an inhalation chamber. From the data obtained, we are able to account for approximately 40-44% of the mass of the aerosol portion and 68-70% of the mass of the vapor portion. The aerosol represented 6-10% of the total mass of the aerosolized JP-8 fuel with the remaining portion being the vapor. From these experiments individual components were identified for further in vivo and in vitro toxicological testing. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
