PAH detection in Quercus robur leaves and Pinus pinaster needles: A fast method for biomonitoring purpose

• PSA is added to Florisil to clean-up Q. robur leaf samples in the proposed procedure.
• Silica and Florisil act the clean-up of P. pinaster needles in the optimized method.
• These procedures are reliable for PAH analyses in oak leaves and pine needles.

Due to the complexity and heterogeneity of plant matrices, new procedure should be standardized for each single biomonitor. Thus, here is described a matrix solid-phase dispersion extraction method, previously used for moss samples, improved and modified for the analyses of PAHs in Quercus robur leaves and Pinus pinaster needles, species widely used in biomonitoring studies across Europe. The improvements compared to the previous procedure are the use of Florisil added with further clean-up sorbents, 10% deactivated silica for pine needles and PSA for oak leaves, being these matrices rich in interfering compounds, as shown by the gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analyses acquired in full scan mode. Good trueness, with values in the range 90–120% for the most of compounds, high precision (intermediate precision between 2% and 12%) and good sensitivity using only 250 mg of samples (limits of quantification lower than 3 and 1.5 ng g–1, respectively for pine and oak) were achieved by the selected procedures. These methods proved to be reliable for PAH analyses and, having advantage of fastness, can be used in biomonitoring studies of PAH air contamination.

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