[Simultaneous Determination of 13 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Indoor Air by HPLC].

OBJECTIVE:To establish a method for the simultaneous determination of 13 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in indoor air by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using methanol/water as mobile phase.METHODS:The analytical procedure involves collecting indoor airborne PAHs on quartz fiber filter, ultrasonic extraction with methanol, transferring PAHs to methanol after blowing off the solvent with nitrogen gas followed with separation and quantitation with reverse-phase HPLC using gradient elution and fluorescence programmed multiple wavelength shift detection. The separation and determination parameters were optimized. PAHs were spiked to evaluate the accuracy of the method.RESULTS:The detection limits of 13 PAHs varied from 0.11 to 11.7 pg. The recoveries ranged between 80.7% and 112.1%. The within-day (n = 5) and between-day (n = 6) relative standard deviations were 0.5%-5.5% and 2.4%-9.1% respectively.CONCLUSIONS:This method is rapid, economical, accurate, and suitable for determining the trace PAHs in indoor air.