Rapid screening method for simultaneous determination of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples by derivative non‐linear variable‐angle synchronous fluorescence spectrometry

Abstract

Derivative non-linear variable-angle synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (D-NLVASFS) has been developed to improve the selectivity of the fluorescence measurement without loss of sensitivity. We report a simple screening approach for the rapid and simultaneous determination of 1,2.5,6-dibenzoanthracene (DBA), 2,3-benzofluorene (BF), pyrene (Pyr) and 3,4-benzopyrene (BaP) in a mixture by using first-derivative NLVASFS. The method is efficient, fast and straightforward, and the measurement was simply based on a single spectrum via a single spectral scanning of a sample. The linear ranges 0.005-0.30, 0.02-0.30, 0.02-0.40 and 0.005-1.0 microg/mL and the detection limits 0.08, 1.14, 1.64 and 0.12 ng/mL are obtained for DBA, BF, Pyr and BaP, respectively. The method was applied to water samples spiked with the four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), with mean recoveries of 103.0% (SD 5.9%) for DBA, 96.4% (SD 4.2%) for BF, 96.2% (SD 4.0%) for Pyr and 98.2% (SD 3.0%) for BaP.