Evaluation of a Cyclodextrin-silica Hybrid Microporous Composite for the Solid-phase Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Abstract

Solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection were employed to determine trace polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples. In this way, the use of cartridges containing cyclodextrin-silica hybrid microporous solid phases was proposed. The experimental results indicated that the method provided relative standard deviations of below 15% and detection limits recorded were 12, 1.2, 12, 38, 4, 6 and 4 ng L⁻¹ for benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[g,h,i]perylene, indeno[1,2,3]pyrene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenzo[a,h]anthracene and benzo[a]anthracene, respectively. Moreover, the method was successfully applied for the determination of these organic compounds in water samples, where they were found to be in the 7 to 580 ng L⁻¹ range. It can be concluded that the major advantages of cyclodextrin-silica hybrid microporous solid phases are that they reduce the consumption and the toxicity of the solvent and the time consumption of the sample treatment step.