Beside the biological effectiveness the approval of a chemical wood preservative requires also techniques for the analytical determination of active ingredients in different matrices. Fulfilling of the last requirement is particularly difficult in the case of impregnated timber treated with wood preservatives containing organic compounds. This paper describes a procedure for the determination of the organic ingredient N-cyclohexyl- diazeniumdioxide (HDO) in solid phases using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in connection with a previous thermal desorption step. For this powdered samples are placed in a glass tube. Then the tube is reinserted into the thermal desorption unit which is placed in the GC-oven and directly connected with the capillary column. Afterwards the sample was quickly heated up to 200°C. The resulting gas mixture is pushed onto the column and the separation of the gas components took place. The single components could be identified by means of the retention time and the mass spectrum. A quantitative determination seems to be possible by means of the intensity of the signals. The suitability and reproducibility of this method of the determination of HDO were tested successfully by analysing a number of impregnated wood specimens treated with different formulations containing HDO.

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