Determination of benzo(a)pyrene in the exhaled breath condensate of cigarette smokers by microextraction and HPLC-UV

Abstract

A reliable and efficient ultrasound assisted-liquid–liquid microextraction method-solidification of floating organic drop method (UA-LLME-SFOD) coupled with HPLC-UV was developed based on using low density organic solvents for extraction/determination of benzo(a)pyrene in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) as an alternative biological sample. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the analysis of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in EBC samples. The effect of different experimental parameters on the extraction efficiency of the analyte was investigated in detail and the optimal conditions were established. Under these conditions, the proposed method provided a good linearity in the range of 5–100 ng mL⁻¹, low limit of detection (0.48 ng mL⁻¹), and good repeatability with % RSD below 2.1%, n = 5. The developed method was successfully used to determine benzo(a)pyrene in the EBC samples of some cigarette smokers.