Highly sensitive and selective determination of 9,10-phenanthrenequinone in airborne particulates using high-performance liquid chromatography with pre-column derivatization and fluorescence detection

9,10-Phenanthrenequinone (PQ), is one of the components of diesel exhaust particulates, has potent harmful effects on human health. For the determination of PQ in airborne particulates, a highly sensitive and selective high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed with fluorescence detection following the pre-column fluorescent derivatization. PQ was derivatized with benzaldehyde as a derivatizing reagent in the presence of ammonium acetate to give fluorescent 2-phenyl-1H-phenanthro [9,10-d] imidazole. The maximum fluorescence intensity of the derivative was observed by the reaction with 0.2M benzaldehyde and 0.5M ammonium acetate at 100degreesC for 30min. The HPLC separation of fluorescent derivative of PQ was performed within 20min on an ODS column with a mixture of acetonitrile-water (55:45, v/v) as a mobile phase. Highly sensitive and selective determination of PQ was attained with the detection limit of 5 fmol (S/N = 3). By the proposed method, PQ in airborne particulates was successfully determined in the range 0.26-0.30 ng/m(3) (n = 3). (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.