Abstract
The procedures of ultrasonic extraction and clean-up were optimized for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in marine sediments. Samples were ultrasonically extracted, and the extracts were purified with a miniaturized silica gel chromatographic column and analyzed with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a fluorescence detector. Ultrasonication with methanol-dichloromethane (2:1, v/v) mixture gave higher extraction efficiency than that with dichloromethane. Among the three elution solvents used in clean-up step, dichloromethane-hexane (2:3, v/v) mixture was the most satisfactory. Under the optimized conditions, the recoveries in the range of 54.82% to 94.70% with RSDs of 3.02% to 23.22% for a spiked blank, and in the range of 61.20% to 127.08% with RSDs of 7.61% to 26.93% for a spiked matrix, were obtained for the 15 PAHs studied, while the recoveries for a NIST standard reference SRM 1941b were in the range of 50.79% to 83.78% with RSDs of 5.24% to 21.38%. The detection limits were between 0.75 ng L−1 and 10.99 ng L−1for different PAHs. A sample from the Jiaozhou Bay area was examined to test the established methods.
Published Version
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