Polyaromatic hydrocarbon screening

Tena et al. [52] carried out a screening of polyaromatic hydrocarbon types in soil by on-line fibre optic interfaced supercritical fluid extraction spectrofluorimetry. 

Thomas etal. [72] used pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as a fast economic screening technique for polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Thomas used reverse-phase liquid chromatography with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry for the determination of polycyclic aromatic sulphur heterocycles in sediments. 

The polyaromatic hydrocarbons in the soil sample were quantitated by using an external standard of anthracene. The results reportedly for a polluted soil and sediment sample indicate that this flash evaporation-pyrolysis technique combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is a valuable tool for rapidly screening polluted samples for virtually all types of anthropogenic contaminants except for heavy metals. 

It has been coupled with enzyme immunoassay for efficient and fast polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) screening in soil [21]. In a number of studies both static and dynamic superheated water extraction has been coupled to solid-phase microextraction [15, 25, 28, 30, 35, 38], sometimes with other analytical methods also coupled. It has been coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry [31], capillary electrophoresis [31], liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry [32] and liquid chromatography-gas chromatography [41]. Sometimes other chemicals are added to the water used, such as acid [42] or phosphate buffer [43]. Different trapping methods for analytical extraction have been examined [44]. 

Biological monitoring techniques such as immunoassays are now available for environmental analysis. These form the basis of low cost, rapid, and highly selective kits for the determination of specific compounds or classes of compounds, such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides, in food, water, and soil matrices. They are simple to use and are well suited to screening sites for contamination prior to sampling and laboratory analysis. Immunoassays can also be applied to blood and urine samples for assessing the exposure of organisms to contaminants. 

The use of water is universal. In the determination of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, considerable increases in response compared with El detectors are found. Analytical procedures have even been published for nitroaromatics. Water can also be used successfully as a reagent gas for screening small molecules, for example, volatile halogenated hydrocarbons (industrial solvents), as it does not interfere with the low scan range for these substances. 

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