Distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons among Sediment Size Fractions Determined by Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

Traditional extraction methods have some inherent disadvantages, such as requiring large amounts of samples and organic solvents, they are time consuming and complex, and involve multi-step processes that are subject to errors. A thermal desorption based analytical method is presented in the paper which is rapid, requires no solvents, and is easy to use. This method showed acceptable recoveries, repeatability, and linearity in response. Unfortunately, increased maintenance of the GC/MSD may be required when using this method. Sediments from three different urban creeks in central Alabama were analyzed for PAHs concentrations for different particle sizes. Sediments were also analyzed for COD, material composition, and particle sizes to correlate with the associated PAH concentrations. All the parameters studied showed the similar trend, smaller and larger sized pArticles are found to have high concentrations of parameters compared to intermediate sized pArticles.