Pressurised fluid extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their polar oxidation products from atmospheric particles

An effective method utilising pressurised fluid extraction (PFE) to simultaneously extract polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their polar oxidation products from atmospheric particulate matter (PM) is presented. The PFE method is advantageous over the traditional Soxhlet extraction due to its lower solvent consumption (9mL compared to 90mL) and shorter extraction time (15min versus 18h). Seventy compounds including PAHs and polar PAH oxidation products containing carbonyl (oxy-PAHs), hydroxyl (hydroxy-PAHs), and carboxylic acid (carboxy-PAHs) groups were targeted in the extraction of two different PM matrices: wood smoke (WS) and diesel exhaust (DE) PM. The PFE method was optimised and then compared to Soxhlet extraction for both PM matrices. The overall amounts of PAHs and their derivatives extracted from WS PM were slightly higher for the optimised PFE method (1849 +/- 21 and 1863 +/- 25 mu gg(-1) with dichloromethane (DCM) and methanol (MeOH), respectively) than those obtained with Soxhlet extraction (1726 +/- 33 and 1769 +/- 22 mu gg(-1) with DCM and MeOH, respectively). For DE PM (standard reference material (SRM) 2975) the overall amounts extracted by both methods were similar (average of 165 +/- 6 mu gg(-1)), agreeing with previously published values. The detailed evaluation of extraction efficiencies for WS PM showed similar amounts for unfunctionalised PAHs (1100 mu gg(-1)) for both methods and solvents. For DE PM the mass yields for PAHs using PFE with DCM (62 +/- 1 mu gg(-1)) were the highest and nearly 20% higher than those obtained with MeOH (53 +/- 2 mu gg(-1)). The total mass yields of carboxy and hydroxy-PAHs from WS PM were also similar (412 +/- 18 and 407 +/- 11 mu gg(-1)) for PFE and Soxhlet with MeOH, and higher than when DCM was used (371 +/- 5 and 379 +/- 12 mu gg(-1) for PFE and Soxhlet, respectively). For both matrices, the PFE yields for oxy-PAHs were higher than those obtained with Soxhlet.