Remediation of PAH-Contaminated Soils and Sediments: A ...

Capillary columns usually generally provide more complete separation of the
analytes of interest, while packed columns are most appropriately employed
when the list of analytes to be determined is relatively short. However, the
packed column GC method cannot adequately resolve the following four pairs of
compounds:
1. anthracene and phenanthrene
2. chrysene and benz[a]anthracene
3. benzo[b]fluoranthene and benzo[k]fluoranthene
4. dibenz[a,h]anthracene and indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene.
The use of a capillary column instead of the packed column, may adequately
resolve these PAH. However, unless the purpose of the analysis can be served
by reporting a quantitative sum for an unresolved PAH pair, either liquid
chromatography (Method 8310) or gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy
(Method 8270) should be used for these compounds. See Table 12 for
recommened methods and Table 13 for detection limits.
Table 12. Recommended analytical methods for specific PAH compounds (EPA,
2007).
Compound Determinative Methods
Acenaphthene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Acenaphthylene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Anthracene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Benz[a]anthracene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Benzo[b]fluoranthene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310
Benzo[j]fluoranthene 8100
Benzo[k]fluoranthene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310
Benzo[g,h,i]perylene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310
Benzo[a]pyrene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Chrysene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Dibenz[a,h]anthracene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310
Fluoranthene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Fluorene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310
Naphthalene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Phenanthrene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
Pyrene 8100, 8270, 8275, 8310, 8410
82