Determination of PAH in the Black Sea Water by GC/MS Following Preconcentration with Solid-Phase Extraction

Determination of PAHs in marine coastal waters has to be carried out with great care to avoid serious losses occurring during the sampling and storage stage. This is due to the hydrophobic properties of PAHs, and their tendency to be adsorbed to surfaces they are in contact with, including suspended particulate matter. The best technique to separate PAHs is gas chromatography with mass spectrometer. Because of low concentration levels to be quantified in water samples, an enrichment step is needed before chromatographic analysis. For PAHs, several preconcentration techniques have been used, but the most concentration technique is solid-phase extraction (SPE). The main objective of this work is to adapt and implement a relatively simple and rapid method for gas chromatographic determination of individual PAHs in samples of coastal and running waters. The present work analyses the yield and precision of extraction of PAHs by solid phase extraction with using different sorbents for SPE (Bond Elut: C18 and Plexa SPE discs), the two most common methods used for aqueous samples.