Determination of Gaseous and Particulate Heterocyclic Aromatic Amines in Ambient Air Using Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Photodiode Array and Fluorescence (HPLC-PDA/FLD) Detection

A practical analytical method for the preliminary determination of seven heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) in air was developed using ultrasonic extraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography equipped with photodiode array and fluorescence detectors. Field samples were collected from 20 locations in Chuncheon, Republic of Korea, to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method. The procedure was optimized by selecting the extraction solvent, duration, and temperature. When validation was performed on the corresponding particulate- and gaseous-phase sampling media, including sulfuric acid-treated filters for the gaseous phase, recoveries ranged from 67.3% to 108% and relative standard deviations ranged from 1.0% to 33%. Assuming a sampling duration of 1 h, method detection limits ranged from 0.039 to 95 ng/m3 for particulate-phase compounds and from 0.3 to 796 ng/m3 for gaseous-phase compounds. In field samples, 9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (norharman) and 1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (harman) were frequently detected in the particulate phase, whereas norharman and 2-amino-9H-pyrido[2,3-b]indole (AαC) were the most notable compounds in the gaseous phase. Overall, this study provides a practical analytical approach for the preliminary determination of airborne HAAs and supports future monitoring and risk assessment studies.