Determination of 9, 10-phenanthrenequinone in airborne particulates by high-performance liquid chromatography with post-column fluorescence derivatization using 2-aminothiophenol

9, 10-Phenanthrenequinone (PQ) is regarded as a harmful environmental pollutant and its presence has been reported in atmospheric environment. The measurement of PQ in environment should be necessary to evaluate the influence of PQ on human health. We found that PQ reacted with 2-aminothiophenol under acidic condition to form fluorescent derivative which emits green fluorescence at 510 nm. Based on this reaction, a simple and rapid determination method for PQ was developed by HPLC with post-column derivatization and fluorescence detection. By the proposed HPLC system, PQ was detected at 24 min and the detection limit was 67 fmol/injection (S/N = 3). The proposed method was able to determine the atmospheric PQ concentrations by the direct injection of extract from airborne particulates.