Determination of Hydroxy Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Human Urine Using Automated Microextraction by Packed Sorbent and Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

A fast methodology for the determination of monohydroxy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in human urine using a fully automated microextraction by packed sorbent coupled to a gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer is reported. Sample preparation requires simple hydrolysis, centrifugation, filtration, and dilution. The method does not require a derivatization step prior to analysis with gas chromatography and allows the measurement of up to three samples per hour after hydrolysis. Quantitation is carried out by a one-point standard addition allowing the determination of 6 analytes with good limits of detection (10.1–39.6 ng L−1 in water and 0.5–19.4 µg L−1 in urine), accuracy (88–110%) and precision (2.1–23.4% in water and 5.1–19.0% in urine) values. This method has been successfully applied to the analysis of six urine samples (three from smoker and three from non-smoker subjects), finding significant differences between both types of samples. Results were similar to those found in the literature for similar samples, which proves the applicability of the methodology.