Simultaneous Determination of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Using the Prominence-i Integrated High Performance Liquid Chromatograph

Many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons exhibit fluorescence, and can therefore be detected with high selectivity and high sensitivity using a fluorescence detector. However, of the sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons designated as "priority pollutants" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), acenaphthylene alone does not exhibit fluorescence. Therefore, a single fluorescence detector cannot be used for simultaneous analysis of all sixteen of these PAHs. However, the Prominence-i, which incorporates a UV detector, can be connected to the RF-20Axs fluorescence detector as an optional detector, permitting simultaneous analysis of all sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Here, using two analytical methods, one with the wavelength switching mode and the other using simultaneous measurement at multiple wavelengths, we introduce an example of simultaneous analysis of the 16 PAHs.