Determination of trace levels of linear alkylbenzenesulfonates in the marine environment by high-performance liquid chromatography

The widespread and increasing use of linear alkylbenzenesulfonates (LAS) has shown the need for analytical procedure of LAS. A method has been developed to isolate, concentrate and determine trace levels of LAS from marine environmental samples. LAS were extracted with Bond Elut C₁₈ reversed-phase minicolumn and quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorophotometric detection. This method can determine trace levels of LAS, simply, rapidly, specifically and sensitively and minimize the risk of contamination. This method showed the limit of determination for each LAS component of approx. 0.1 μg l⁻¹ for water, 0.03 μg g⁻¹ (dry basis) for bottom sediment or 0.3 μg g⁻¹ (wet basis) for fish sample, the recovery of 80% for water, 87% for sediment or 86% for fish sample, and the reproduceability of 3–4% relative standard deviation for five-replicated analysis of sea water or sea sediment.This proposed method was employed for the determination of LAS in marine environmental samples of Tokyo bay, Japan. A concentration range between 0.8 and 30 μg l⁻¹ of LAS was found in Tokyo bay water. The highest concentration was detected in the coastal areas.