Handling of marine and estuarine samples for the determination of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates and sulfophenylcarboxylic acids

Due to the physicochemical properties of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS), an anionic surfactant, it is difficult to obtain representative samples from sampling sites. Further, the high biodegradability of these compounds makes it necessary to study their biodegradation intermediates, sulfophenylcarboxylic acids (SPC) that do not have a surfactant character and show a different behavior. A procedure for determining and quantifying LAS and SPC in different environmental matrices by Soxhlet and solid-phase extractions and high-performance liquid chromatography is presented. The recoveries varied in the range from 85 to 102% for the water samples, and from 75 to 105% for sediment samples, with a standard deviation of between 1 and 7, and 2 and 11, respectively. Detection limits obtained were in the range from 5 to 10 μg kg−1 for sediment samples (10 g) and from 0.2 to 0.4 μg l−1 for water samples (250 ml). The method was applied to the simultaneous determination of LAS (C10–C13) and SPC (C4–C13) homologues in water, sediment and interstitial water collected from different areas of Spain.