Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in sea water using solid‐phase microextraction

Abstract

Solid‐phase microextraction (SPME) technique with poly(dimethylsiloxane)‐coated fiber has been employed for the rapid determination of sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in natural water. The method is solvent‐less with the analytes being adsorbed and then desorbed thermally at the injector port of a gas chromato‐graph (GC) prior to mass spectrometric (MS) analysis in selective ion monitoring (SIM) mode. The influences of the injector port temperature, desorption time and initial oven temperature on the thermal desorption of PAHs from the fiber were investigated. Then the optimum SPME conditions were applied for the qualitative and quantitative determination of PAHs in environmental samples. The recoveries of the 16 PAHs being spiked into sea water at 50 ng/mL level were 75.3%. The levels of PAHs in the Singapore coastal sea water are between 0.02–8.50 ng/mL using SPME(PDMS).