Development of an on-line coupling of liquid-liquid extraction, normal-phase liquid chromatography and high-resolution gas chromatography producing an analytical marker for the prediction of mutagenicity and carcinogenicity of bitumen and bitumen fumes

A fast and fully automated system for the determination of polycyclic aroma tic compounds (PACs) is described. The system has been developed to produce an analytical 'marker', correlating chemical characteristics (including PA C analysis) with mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. The products of interest are bitumen fumes; bitumen and other (heavy or even residual) oil products , regardless of their boiling range. Dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) extractable s obtained from a flow-injection analysis (FIA) system are introduced on-li ne in a normal-phase liquid chromatographic (NPLC) system. Here, the PACs a re separated from the DMSO and possible co-extracted heavy residual species . The final step incorporates on-line gas chromatographic analysis of the t hree-to-six-ring PAC fraction, followed by flame-ionisation detection for q uantification. It was demonstrated that data obtained from samples in the d istillate lubrication-oil range correlate well with data obtained from the manual DMSO-extraction method standardised by the Institute of Petroleum as IP346. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.