Abstract
Antarctica has seen an increase in scientific research and tourism, and anthropogenic activities such as incineration of waste products and fuel combustion for energy and transportation are potential contamination sources to the ecosystem. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are common products of incomplete combustion of organic compounds and could be among accumulating contaminants in Antarctica. Thus, this study sought to develop a sensitive dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method for the determination of 15 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Parameters that were relevant to the extraction method were carefully optimized and validated using aqueous standard solutions. The optimum method recorded detection limits in the range of 0.20–6.1 µg/L for the analytes. Spike recovery experiments were carried out on artificial seawater, rock-soil, and moss samples, using matrix matching calibration to mitigate effects of the sample matrices. The samples analyzed included seawater, lake, rock-soil, moss, seaweed, and feces samples all collected from the Horseshoe and Faure Islands in Antarctica. The percent recovery results obtained for the samples spiked at different concentrations ranged between 86 and 115%.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This work was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) with project number 119Z846.
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Maral Selin Fındıkoğlu Ercan:Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; validation; visualization; roles/writing – original draft Merve Fırat Ayyıldız: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; validation; visualization; roles/writing – original draft Elif Yazıcı: Data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; validation; visualization Berfin Metin: Data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; validation; visualization Dotse Selali Chormey: Data curation; methodology; validation; roles/writing, original draft; writing, review and editing Elif Seda Koçoğlu: Conceptualization; data curation; investigation; visualization Sezgin Bakırdere: Funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; project administration; supervision; writing – review and editing.
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Ercan, M.S.F., Ayyıldız, M.F., Yazıcı, E. et al. Development and validation of dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method for the determination of 15 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in 200 Antarctica samples by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Environ Monit Assess 194, 328 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09991-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09991-w