Determination of Perfluorinated Compounds in Ambient Air by Accelerated Solvent Extraction Combined with High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A method for the determination of perfluorinate compounds (PFCs) in ambient air by accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) combined with high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was developed. The air samples were collected with Anderson high-volume sampler model PS-1. The gas phases were mainly collected by polyurethane foam (PUP) plug and the particle phases were mainly collected by quartz fiber filter (QFF). Loaded PUF plugs and QFFs were extracted individually by ASE, each for 15 min 3 times with a mixture solvent of methanol/acetone (1:1, V/V) at 100 degrees C and pressure of 15 MPa. The extracts were concentrated by a K-D concentrator, blown down with a gentle stream of nitrogen and exchanged into methanol. HPLC separation was performed by using an agilent zorbax SB-C-18 column at gradient elution of 0.05 mol/L ammonium acetate and acetonitrile. A triple quadrupole MS operating in multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was used for PFCs quantitative analysis. The linearity ranges were from 0.1 to 50 mu g/L and the limited of determinations of the method ranged from 0.034 to 0.54 pg/m(3). The method was applied to determine trace PFCs in the air samples collected in Guangzhou in May-June 2007, the concentrations of total PFCs ranged from 5.2 to 37.4 pg/m(3) in gas phase and from 11.3 to 74.3 pg/m(3) in particle phase. The method is sensitive, accurate and suitable to monitor trace PFCs in ambient air.