Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aquatic products by HPLC-fluorescence

This paper analyzed 12 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, dibenzo[a,h]anthracene, benzo[g,h,i]perylene, fluoranthene, anthracene, benzo[a]anthracene, chrysene, fluorene, phenanthrene and pyrene, in aquatic products by using a fluorimetric-detection RP-HPLC method. The preliminary treatment procedure was based on microwave-assisted extraction and neutral Al2O3 solid phase purification, and a selective isolation of PAHs from aquatic samples was carried out. The isolated fractions of PAHs were determined by HPLC with fluorescence detection. The test results suggest that the detection limits for the PAHs were from 0.0048 ng/mL to 0.075 ng/mL based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. The recoveries were from 85.26 ± 5.12% to 104.63 ± 0.95%. This proposed method was successfully applied to 35 aquatic samples, in which variable levels of summed PAHs were detected, ranging from 0.0 to 57.76 μg/kg.