Microwave Assisted Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and their Determination by Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry: Validation of the Method and Application to Marine Sediments

Abstract

Microwave-assisted extraction of sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their gas chromatographic mass spectrometric detection are presented herein. An efficient extraction was achieved in 15 minutes using 10 mL of 1:1 n-hexane-acetone while a clean-up step was developed studying the elution curves on solid phase extraction silica cartridges. The analytical method was optimized and validated using a certified reference marine sediment; satisfactory figures of merit were obtained with limits of detection in the range 0.001–0.004 µg/g, precision within 6%, and good linearity (regression coefficients generally higher than 0.998, in the concentration range 0.010–1.000 µg/mL). The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in real marine sediments collected in two coastal areas of Italy exposed to different anthropic impact: three tourist sites of Liguria and the Venetian Lagoon. The total concentration of the analytes in the samples was in the range 1.027–3.827 µg/g and the use of common markers suggested their probable pyrolytic origin.

Keywords:

• Environmental analysis
• GC–MS
• Marine sediments
• Microwave assisted extraction
• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Notes

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