Determination of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Airborne Particulate by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract This paper presents a trisolvent ultrasonic extraction and HPLC analysis method for the determination of 11 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in air particulate collected on an air filter by a commercial high volume air sampler. A reverse phase column, Vydac 201 TP, and a gradient mobile phase, acetonitrile/water, were used. The 11 PAHs, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenz[a, h]anthracene, benzo[ghi]perylene, indeno[1,2,3‐cd]pyrene, and coronene were completely resolved under experimental conditions. All the PAHs except coronene were monitored by fluorescence with λex=270 nm, λem>389 nm. Coronene was monitored by UV with λ=300 nm. The methodology was evaluated by spiking SRM 1649 with a PAH standard and then going through different extraction procedures and analyzing the PAH concentrations without clean‐up. An external standard method was used for quantitation. The recovery yields for fluoranthene, benz[a]anthracene, benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[ghi]perylene and indeno[l,2,3‐cd]pyrene were above 90%. The detection limits of PAH with fluorescence at λex=270 nm, λem>389 nm ranged from 5.7 pg to 69.5 pg.