Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from organic aerosols using hollow fiber micro – porous membrane liquid – liquid extraction (HF-MMLLE) followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis

A method for determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from aerosols was developed. Instead of conventionally used non-polar or slightly polar phenylmethylpolysiloxane column a highly polar, highly substituted, cyanopropyl column (VF-23 MS) was used for separation of PAHs. Based on hollow fiber micro-porous membrane liquid–liquid extraction (HF-MMLLE) a method was developed for sample clean up and pretreatment. An enrichment factor of 617–1022 was obtained with extraction efficiency 10.2–18.9% for different PAHs analyzed in this study. The optimized method was successfully applied to aerosol samples and limits of detection between 1.2 pg m−3 and 180 pg m−3 was obtained. Almost all PAHs were found in most of the aerosol samples.