Nitrofluoranthenes detection

In the mid-1980s, the discovery of significant amounts of 2-nitropyrene in ambient particulate matter collected in a rural region of Denmark by Nielsen and co-workers (1984) and 2-nitrofluoranthene in southern California by Pitts and colleagues (1985b) provided unique initial evidence for the possible formation of nitroarenes by reactions of precursor PAHs in ambient air. Thus, these compounds are not electrophilic nitration products of their parent PAHs and are generally not observed in combustion sources such as diesel soot see, for example, Table 10.34 and the report of Ciccioli and co-workers on the detection of emissions of 2-nitrofluoranthene and 2-nitropyrene solely from a very minor Italian industrial source (see Ciccioli et al., 1993, 1995, 1996, and references therein). 

Additionally, in two different monitoring campaigns conducted in the center of Milan, Italy, Ciccioli and co-workers (1993) reported 2-nitrofluoranthene, 2-nitropyrene, and 1-nitropyrene were the only ni-troarenes detected. Subsequently, in a comprehensive study of the atmospheric formation and transport of 2-nitrofluoranthene and 2-nitropyrene, they established their presence and levels in ambient particles collected at sites located in urban, suburban, forest, and remote areas in Europe, Asia, America, and Antarctica (Ciccioli et al., 1996, and references therein see also Ciccioli et al., 1995). 

In this study, the concentrations of several kinds of nitro-PAH, such as 1-nitropyrene (1-NP), 2-nitropyrene (2-NP), 2-nitrofluoranthene (2-NF), and 2-NTP, in the soluble organic fraction of airborne particles were determined by a column switching HPLC-chemiluminescence detection system in order to clarify the occurrence and behaviour of 2-NTP in the atmosphere. 

In ambient air samples analyzed by GC-MS, different peaks of isomers of nitropyrenes and nitrofluoranthenes can be observed (Fig. 2). Some of these products are combustion-derived, while others primarily originate from atmospheric reactions. Some previously reported extremely high concentrations of 1-NP [31] might be partly explained by poor separation and identification of different isomers of 1-NP in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis equipped with fluorescence detection. 

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