Abstract

The 16 priority PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) designated by US Environmental Protection Agency were analyzed for some digested sludges from wastewater treatment plants in Korea. PAHs are an important group of organic contaminants present in sewage sludge due to their persistence and toxic potential. PAHs were extracted from freeze-dried sludges using a methylene chloride-methanol (2:1) mixture in a soxhlet extractor. The extracts were cleaned-up by silica gel/alumina combination column and subsequently fed into gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) for determining PAH contents. The sum of the 16 PAHs in the sewage sludge varied from 534.8 to , dry wt.. In the sewage sludge, phenanthrene appears as the most abundant PAHs, followed by naphthalene, pyrene, fluoranthene. Source of the investigated sewage sludges relatively predominated pyrogenic. PAHs levels of sewage sludges in Korea appeared to be lower than those in other countries.

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