Improving the Fluorescence Detectability of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons for Evaluation of Workplace Environments of Cement Industries Processing Organic Residues

Abstract

The burning of organic residues and wastes in furnaces of cement industries has been an attractive and lucrative approach to eliminate stocks of these pollutants. There is a potential risk for producing PAH in the workplace of industries burning organic wastes, so that highly sensitive analytical methods are needed for monitoring the air quality of these environments. An official method for determination of PAH is based on liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection at fixed excitation and emission wavelengths. We demonstrate that a suitable choice of these wavelengths, which are changed during the chromatographic run, significantly improves the detectability of PAH in atmosphere and particulate matter collected in cement industries.

Keywords:

• HPLC-fluorescence
• PAH
• residues burning

Financial support and fellowships from FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES are gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

^a Acenaphthylene does not fluoresce, so its detection was made by UV absorption at 228 nm.

^b Six points at regular concentration intervals were taken within the concentration range for construction of analytical curves.

^c LOD = 3.3 s/S, where s is the standard deviation of mean peak area of 10 injections of the PAH at the lowest concentration used for construction of the analytical curve; S is the slope of the analytical curve.

^d LOQ = 3LOD.

^e LOD and LOQ in terms of mass of PAH per sample extracted for o total volume of 10 mL, according to the procedure described in the NIOSH method 5506 (NIOSH 1994).

^a Results are mean values and standard deviations of duplicates of chromatographic analysis.

^b n.d. = not detected.

^a Results are mean values and standard deviations of duplicates of chromatographic analysis.

^b n.d. = not detected.