Quantification of several monohydroxylated metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urine by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method with fluorescence detection has been developed to determine the urinary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites 2-hydroxynaphthalene, 2-hydroxyfluorene, 9-hydroxyphenanthrene, 1-hydroxypyrene and 3-hydroxybenza]pyrene. Solid phase extraction (SPE) was used to clean up the samples, and washing with 30% methanol was found to be the best way to remove interferences in the matrix. The method detection limits ranged from 0.044 μg/L for 1-hydroxypyrene to 1.615 μg/L for 3-hydroxybenza]pyrene, and the recoveries ranged between 40% for 3-hydroxybenza]pyrene and 99% for 2-hydroxynaphthalene. The within-day relative standard deviation was lowest for 2-hydroxynaphthalene at 0.67% and went up to 2.42% for 3-hydroxybenza]pyrene, and the between-day relative standard deviation ranged from 3.84% for 9-hydroxyphenanthrene to 10.42% for 2-hydroxyfluorene. The correlation coefficients were between 0.9962 and 0.9998. The developed method was successfully used to analyze samples from student volunteers in a high school.