Compost and digestate - Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) by gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

This document specifies different methods for quantitative determination of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) (see Table 1) in compost or digestate, using GC-MS, GCMS/MS or HPLC-UV-DAD/FLD covering a wide range of PAH contamination levels (see Table 1). When using fluorescence detection, acenaphthylene cannot be measured. The limit of detection depends on the determinants, the equipment used, the quality of chemicals used for the extraction of the sample and the clean-up of the extract. This document contains decision tables based on the properties of the sample and the extraction and clean-up procedure to be used. The method may be applied to the analysis of other PAH not specified in the scope, provided suitability is proven by proper in-house validation experiments.