Rapid screening method for simultaneous determination of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples by derivative non‐linear variable‐angle synchronous fluorescence spectrometry

Derivative non‐linear variable‐angle synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (D‐NLVASFS) has been developed to improve the selectivity of the fluorescence measurement without loss of sensitivity. We report a simple screening approach for the rapid and simultaneous determination of 1,2.5,6‐dibenzoanthracene (DBA), 2,3‐benzofluorene (BF), pyrene (Pyr) and 3,4‐benzopyrene (BaP) in a mixture by using first‐derivative NLVASFS. The method is efficient, fast and straightforward, and the measurement was simply based on a single spectrum via a single spectral scanning of a sample. The linear ranges 0.005–0.30, 0.02–0.30, 0.02–0.40 and 0.005–1.0 µg/mL and the detection limits 0.08, 1.14, 1.64 and 0.12 ng/mL are obtained for DBA, BF, Pyr and BaP, respectively. The method was applied to water samples spiked with the four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), with mean recoveries of 103.0% (SD 5.9%) for DBA, 96.4% (SD 4.2%) for BF, 96.2% (SD 4.0%) for Pyr and 98.2% (SD 3.0%) for BaP. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.