Analytical reference materials. Part VI. Development and certification of a sediment reference material for selected polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons

Abstract

A naturally contaminated environmental sediment reference material (EC-1) was developed and analysed for selected polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Freeze-dried and homogenised subsamples of EC-1 were Soxhlet extracted and the extracts were cleaned-up on activated silica gel and alumina columns. The levels of PAH in this material were determined by using the following three independent analytical methods: (1) GC-FID, (2) GC-MS and (3) reversed-phase HPLC with fluorescence and UV detectors. Up to a total of 72 replicate determinations were performed and the results obtained by each method were in good agreement with each other. Interlaboratory PAH results for EC-1 obtained in a round-robin study also confirmed the in-house data. The results for ten PAH of which the between-method difference was less than ±10% were pooled to generate the certified values.