Determination of 18 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in plastic products by ultra performance convergence chromatography

A method for rapid determination of naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo (a) anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b) fluoranthene, benzo(k) fluoranthene, benzo(j) fluoranthene, benzo (e) pyrene, benzo (a) pyrene, indeno (1, 2, 3-cd) pyrene, dibenzo (a, h) anthracene, benzo (g, h, i) perylene in plastic products by ultra performance convergence chromatography (UPC2) coupled photodiode array detector (PAD) was developed. The 18 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were successfully separated in less than 8.5 min on a Daicel IB-3 chiral column with a mobile phase of CO2, the mobile-phase additive of methanol/acetonitrile (25 :75, v/v) at column temperature of 40 degrees C, and a back pressure of 15.17 MPa. There was a linear correlation between peak area and PAH concentration in the range of 0.05-50 mg/L (r ≥ 0.999 5) for each PAH. The limits of quantification (LOQs)(S/N > 10) were 0.05 mg/L. After ultrasonic-assisted extraction in toluene, the sample was analyzed by UPC2-PDA. The recoveries of PAHs spiked in plastic samples were from 78.3% to 117.6%, and the repeatabilities of peak areas for the 18 PAHs were less than 5% (RSD, n = 5). The present UPC2-PDA method has the advantages of rapid speed, high resolution, and low organic reagent consumption.