Highly sensitive and selective spectrofluorimetric approach for the rapid determination of trace benzo[<i>α</i>]pyrene in drinking water and in solutions leached from disposable paper cups

Abstract

Based on the excellent band narrowing and background suppressing features of second-derivative constant-energy synchronous spectrofluorimetry with a Δ⁻υ value of 1400 cm(-1) , the strong fluorescence intensity for benzo[α]pyrene (BaP) obtained in dichloromethane and the use of standard addition method, a highly sensitive and selective approach for the quantitative determination of trace amount of BaP in drinking water has been established in this study. The detection and quantification limits were 0.11 and 0.37 ng L(-1) , respectively, and the recoveries obtained from spiked Milli-Q water, bottled natural spring water, tank-purified water and tap water at different concentrations, ranged from 86.0 to 104.0%. This method has been applied for the determination of trace BaP in solution leached from disposable paper cups. The experimental results indicated that BaP was leached from paper cups when filled with hot water, but it was not detected when cool (unheated) water was used.