Analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by capillary electrochromatography by using capillary columns packed with polycyclic‐aromatic‐hydrocarbon‐specific particles

Abstract

As a result of their carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic properties, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are considered as priority pollutants by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in environment draws extensive attention in the analytical community. The diversity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in terms of chemical structures and properties leads to the requirement for highly efficient separation technologies. This study describes the usage of polycyclic‐aromatic‐hydrocarbon‐specific particles as a stationary phase for the separation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by capillary electrochromatography. A comparison of the separations of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons performed on capillary columns packed with polycyclic‐aromatic‐hydrocarbon‐specific particles and C18 silica microspheres indicated that polycyclic‐aromatic‐hydrocarbon‐specific particles showed a wider distribution and larger gap in chromatographic retention factor (0.6–41.8) toward polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons than C18 (2.0–14.2). As a result, resolutions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on columns packed with polycyclic‐aromatic‐hydrocarbon‐specific particles (1.2–9.9) were significantly superior over those on C18‐packed capillary columns (0.5–6.3). A mobile phase of 20 mM Tris (pH 8.5)/acetonitrile (15:85 v/v) was optimized for the rapid separation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at a pressurized flow rate of 0.2 mL min−1 under an applied voltage of –16 kV. Limits of detection of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were obtained in the range 0.020–0.89 mg L−1 with good precisions (intracolumn reproducibilities of 0.2–1.9% for retention time, 1.4–4.2% for peak height and 1.4–4.4% for peak area, and intracolumn reproducibilities of 2.6–4.2% for retention time, 3.4–7.2% for peak height and 6.9–9.7% for peak area). The proposed method was employed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons analysis in fresh water with good recovery (87.6–112.4%), where polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in all water samples were present at levels below the detection limits.

Preparation of D‐histidine modified zeolitic imidazolate framework‐90 coated capillary column and its application in open‐tube capillary electrochromatography enantioseparation

“…The higher separation efficiency and lower operating cost than HPLC have driven CEC to be a burgeoning technology. According to different methods of preparing capillary columns, CEC can be divided into three types: open-tube CEC (OT-CEC) [1][2][3][4], packed column CEC [5,6], and monolithic column CEC [7][8][9]. Currently, CEC has become a very important method and technology in the field of chiral separation.…”