Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with molecular mass 302 in standard reference material 1597a by reversed-phase liquid chromatography and stop-flow fluorescence detection

Abstract

The identification of isomeric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in complex samples via reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) with fluorescence detection (FL) is normally based on matching the chromatographic retention times of suspected peaks of interest with reference standards. Since no spectral information is obtained during the chromatographic run, the accurate identification of co-eluting PAHs with similar chromatographic behaviors requires confirmation with additional chromatographic methods. This is particularly true for the analysis of PAH isomers with the relative molecular mass (MM, g mol⁻¹) 302. The work presented here explores the information content of room-temperature fluorescence spectra for the analysis of PAHs with MM 302 in the Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1597a. Fluorescence spectra were recorded under stop-flow conditions with the aid of a commercial HPLC system. Of the 21 MM 302 PAHs known to be present in the SRM 1597a, 20 were tentatively identified based on retention times and the presence of 18 was confirmed based on excitation and emission spectral profiles.