Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) – Method for the determination of semi‐volatile PAHs in workplace air using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

Air Monitoring Method – Translation of the German version from 2017

Heinz Assenmacher‐Maiworm¹ (Method development)
Jens-Uwe Hahn¹ (Method development)
Birgit Heinrich¹ (Method development)
Claudia Schuh² (External verification)
  Ralph Hebisch³ (Head of the working group “Air Analyses” of the Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
  Thomas Helmut Brock⁴ (Head of the working group “Analytics”)
  Andrea Hartwig⁵ (Chair of the Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
  MAK Commission<sup>6

1</sup> Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA), Alte Heerstraße 111, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany
² German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the foodstuffs industry and the catering trade, Dynamostraße 7–11, 68165 Mannheim, Germany
³ Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), Friedrich-Henkel-Weg 1–25, 44149 Dortmund, Germany
⁴ German Social Accident Insurance, Institution for the raw materials and chemical industry, Prevention - Department of Hazardous Substances, Biological Agents and Analytical Chemistry, Kurfürsten-Anlage 62, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
⁵ Institute of Applied Biosciences, Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Adenauerring 20a, Building 50.41, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
⁶ Permanent Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Kennedyallee 40, 53175 Bonn, Germany

Abstract

This analytical method is a validated measurement procedure for the determination of six semi‐volatile polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the EPA list (US Environmental Protection Agency) such as benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenzo[a,h]anthracene, benzo[ghi]perylene, indeno[1,2,3‐cd]pyrene and also benzo[e]pyren in workplace air averaged over the sampling period after personal or stationary sampling. Sampling is performed by drawing a defined volume of air through a PTFE filter, which is inserted in a GSP sampling system. The collected PAH components are extracted with a mixture of acetonitrile/methanol and analysed by means of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection. The quantitative determination of the PAHs is based on calibration functions obtained by means of multiple‐point calibrations. The limit of quantification for an individual PAH is in the range from 0.0012 to 0.0043 µg/m³.

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