Pressurised fluid extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their polar oxidation products from atmospheric particles

Abstract

An effective method utilising pressurised fluid extraction (PFE) to simultaneously extract polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their polar oxidation products from atmospheric particulate matter (PM) is presented. The PFE method is advantageous over the traditional Soxhlet extraction due to its lower solvent consumption (9 mL compared to 90 mL) and shorter extraction time (15 min versus 18 h). Seventy compounds including PAHs and polar PAH oxidation products containing carbonyl (oxy-PAHs), hydroxyl (hydroxy-PAHs), and carboxylic acid (carboxy-PAHs) groups were targeted in the extraction of two different PM matrices: wood smoke (WS) and diesel exhaust (DE) PM. The PFE method was optimised and then compared to Soxhlet extraction for both PM matrices. The overall amounts of PAHs and their derivatives extracted from WS PM were slightly higher for the optimised PFE method (1849 ± 21 and 1863 ± 25 µg g⁻¹ with dichloromethane (DCM) and methanol (MeOH), respectively) than those obtained with Soxhlet extraction (1726 ± 33 and 1769 ± 22 µg g⁻¹ with DCM and MeOH, respectively). For DE PM (standard reference material (SRM) 2975) the overall amounts extracted by both methods were similar (average of 165 ± 6 µg g⁻¹), agreeing with previously published values. The detailed evaluation of extraction efficiencies for WS PM showed similar amounts for unfunctionalised PAHs (1100 µg g⁻¹) for both methods and solvents. For DE PM the mass yields for PAHs using PFE with DCM (62 ± 1 µg g⁻¹) were the highest and nearly 20% higher than those obtained with MeOH (53 ± 2 µg g⁻¹). The total mass yields of carboxy and hydroxy-PAHs from WS PM were also similar (412 ± 18 and 407 ± 11 µg g⁻¹) for PFE and Soxhlet with MeOH, and higher than when DCM was used (371 ± 5 and 379 ± 12 µg g⁻¹ for PFE and Soxhlet, respectively). For both matrices, the PFE yields for oxy-PAHs were higher than those obtained with Soxhlet.

Keywords:

• PFE
• PAHs
• oxy-PAHs
• hydroxy-PAHs
• carboxy-PAHs
• particulate matter

Acknowledgement

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

ORCID

Alena Kubátová http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2318-5883

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) [ATM-0747349] and the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program [CHE-0850644].