Flow injection screening and semiquantitative determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water by laser induced spectrofluorimetry — chemometrics Original Research Article

A continuous method is proposed here for the screening and subsequent semiquantitative determination, if required, of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water. The experimental arrangement is based on the use of a flow injection (FI) manifold that enables preconcentration of the analytes on a C18 minicolumn before their automatic introduction into a flow-cell for detection. An Nd:YAG laser at 355 nm is used as excitation source and fluorescence emission is detected by a charge coupled device. Multivariate information is analysed by soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) and partial least squares regression type 1 (PLS-1), in order to obtain qualitative and semiquantitative information.