A new procedure for the determination of 17 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aqueous
samples by large volume injection–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (LVI–GC–MS) using the
Through Oven Transfer Adsorption Desorption (TOTAD) interface with nitrogen for solvent elimination is
developed and validated. Up to 75 mL of aqueous samples were injected to be sure that good solvent
elimination were achieved, although 500 mL were sufficient to achieve the required sensitivity.The per-
formance of the developed method can be considered good: the relative standard deviation (RSD), (n1⁄43)
was lower than 13.8% for all the target analytes, the concentration of each PAH being 0.25 μg L1
limit of detection and limit of quantitation ranged from 21.5 to 211.0 ng L1 and from 71.7 to
703.3 ng L1 respectively, and the correlation coefficients (R2
g L1 range.