Using gold nanoparticles to improve the recovery and the limits of detection for the analysis of monohydroxy-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine samples

We present a novel approach to improve the analytical figures of merit of solid-phase extraction high-performance liquid chromatography (SPE-HPLC) for the analysis of monohydroxy-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine samples. The novel alternative substitutes the evaporation step that is currently used in SPE-HPLC methodology with a pre-concentration procedure that extracts metabolites with gold nanoparticles. The analytical potential of the new approach is evaluated with the following six metabolites: 9-hydroxyphenanthrene, 2-hydroxyfluorene, 1-hydroxypyrene, 6-hydroxychrysene, 3-hydroxybenzo[a]pyrene and 4-hydroxybenzo[a]pyrene. We demonstrate that the substitution of the evaporation step with the gold nanoparticles procedure improves the overall recoveries, the relative standard deviations of the average recoveries and the limits of detection of SPE-HPLC analysis. The overall recoveries of the studied metabolites varied from 59.7 ± 3.6% (2-hydroxyfluorene) to 92.3 ± 2.5% (6-hydroxychrysene). The relative standard deviations of the average recoveries were lower than 6%. The limits of detection were at the parts-per-trillion levels and varied from ∼2 pg mL−1 (6-hydroxychrysene) to ∼18 pg mL−1 (2-hydroxyfluorene).