Determination of high-molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in high performance liquid chromatography fractions of coal tar standard reference material 1597a via solid-phase nanoextraction and laser-excited time-resolved Shpol’skii spectr

Published

November 10, 2015

Author(s)

Walter B. Wilson, Bassam Alfarhani, Cristina Bisson, Stephen A. Wise, Andres Campiglia

Abstract

This article presents an alternative approach for the analysis of high molecular weight – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (HMW-PAHs) with molecular mass 302 Da in complex environmental samples. This is not a trivial task due to the large number of molecular mass 302 Da isomers with very similar chromatographic elution times and similar, possibly even virtually identical, mass fragmentation patterns. The method presented here is based on 4.2 K laser-excited time-resolved Shpol’skii spectroscopy, a high resolution spectroscopic technique with the appropriate selectivity for the unambiguous determination of PAHs with the same molecular mass. The potential of this approach is demonstrated here with the analysis of a coal tar standard reference material 1597a. Liquid chromatography fractions were submitted to the spectroscopic analysis of five targeted isomers, namely dibenzo[a,l]pyrene, dibenzo[a,e]pyrene, dibenzo[a,i]pyrene naphtho[2,3-a]pyrene and dibenzo[a,h]pyrene. Prior to analyte determination, the liquid chromatographic fractions were pre-concentrated with gold nanoparticles. Complete analysis was possible with microliters of chromatographic fractions and organic solvents. The excellent analytical figures of merit associated to its non-destructive nature, which provides ample opportunity for further analysis with other instrumental methods, makes this approach an attractive alternative for the determination of PAH isomers in complex environmental samples.

Citation

Talanta

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Solid-phase nanoextraction, Shpol’skii spectroscopy, Gold nanoparticles, Coal tar, Standard reference material 1597a

Citation

Wilson, W. , Alfarhani, B. , Bisson, C. , Wise, S. and Campiglia, A. (2015), Determination of high-molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in high performance liquid chromatography fractions of coal tar standard reference material 1597a via solid-phase nanoextraction and laser-excited time-resolved Shpol’skii spectr, Talanta, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2015.11.018 (Accessed April 18, 2024)