High pressure liquid chromatographic determination of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in oysters

A high pressure liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure is described for determining 13 polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PNA) compounds in oysters at the 2 ppb level. These compounds are extracted from shellfish with acetonitrile and partitioned into petroleum ether; the petroleum ether is removed and the residue is saponified. The aromatic compounds are isolated by passing the saponifeid residue through silica gel and further purified and fractionated by muStyragel gel permeation chromatography. The in-ividual PNAs are then quantitatively determined by using a reverse phase HPLC column coupled to fluorescence, spectrophotometric, and 254 nm absorbance detectors in series. Recoveries from spiked samples generally were greater than 80%.