Application of HPLC capacity coefficients to characterize the sorption of polycyclic aromatic compounds to humic acid.

The sorption coefficients to humic acid of 46 PAC having a wide range in polarity were compared with the capacity coefficients of the PAC to a non-polar HPLC column material (ODS) and a polar one (Diol). It is shown that polar interactions contribute to the sorption of polar PAC in addition to the non-polar interactions. The results also suggest that humic acid may contain different hydrophilic adsorption sites. The non-polar column material was only the best model substrate, if the test materials were limited to the hydrophobic unsubstituted PAC, PAH+O,S-PAC.

Sorption of polycyclic aromatic compounds to humic and fulvic acid HPLC column materials.

Two different humic acids (HA) and a fulvic acid (FA) were chemically immobilized to a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) silica column material. The immobilization was performed by binding amino groups in HA/FA to the free aldehyde group in glutardialdehyde attached to the silica gel. The HPLC column materials were compared with a blank column material made by applying the same procedure but without immobilizing HA or FA. Also, a column was made by binding carbonyl groups in HA to amino groups attached to the silica gel. The humic substances were selected to secure appropriate variation of their structural features. The retention factors of 45 polycyclic aromatic compounds (PAC) to the four columns were determined by HPLC. The advantage of the technique is a large number of compounds can easily be studied. The binding procedure does not appear to cause a drastic selection between the HA molecules. The k' values obtained for the two Aldrich HA columns agree in general reasonably. The retention or sorption of the compounds increased with the size of the PAC and the number of lipophilic substituents, but decreased when polar substituents were present. The PAC retention was much stronger to the two HA columns than to the FA and blank column, both for hydrophobic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and the polar PAC. Other factors impacting the PAC binding may be specific interactions with HA and the ionic strength of the aqueous phase. The technique has been applied to do direct determinations of Koc.