On the improvement of solid-phase extraction room-temperature phosphorimetry for the analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples

This article presents considerable improvements in SPE-RTP methodology for the analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples. Bulky glassware and vacuum pump were removed from the previous extraction procedure [E.D. Hagestuen, A.D. Campiglia, Talanta 49 (1998) 547] by processing 10 ml of sample with syringes and stainless steel filter holders. The oven-drying step was substituted by air sample drying, which employed positive pressure to remove water excess from the extraction membrane. As a result, analysis times from 8 to 10 min per sample were obtained. No costs in levels of detection were observed. Limits of detection at the pg ml−1 level were estimated for phenanthrene, pyrene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene, and chrysene. The feasibility of identifying single components in PAH mixtures was investigated. Binary and tertiary mixtures were resolved by appropriate choice of excitation and emission wavelengths. The advantage of using excitation–emission matrix analysis was demonstrated for a six-component mixture.