Salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction and partial least squares regression to assay low molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons leached from soils and sediments.

A novel method was developed to determine low molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aqueous leachates from soils and sediments using a salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction, synchronous fluorescence spectrometry and a multivariate calibration technique. Several experimental parameters were controlled and the optimum conditions were: sodium carbonate as the salting-out agent at concentration of 2molL, 3mL of acetonitrile as extraction solvent, 6mL of aqueous leachate, vortexing for 5min and centrifuging at 4000rpm for 5min. The partial least squares calibration was optimized to the lowest values of root mean squared error and five latent variables were chosen for each of the targeted compounds.