Fluorescence techniques for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in marine environment: an overview

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are compounds of great environmenta l interest because of their potential carcinogenic and mutagenic activity a nd their frequent occurrence in the environment, above all in the marine en vironment. Therefore it is an important to establish simple, sensitive and reliable methods for the determination of these compounds. In this work we report an overview on the application of fluorescence techniques to the stu dy and determination of PAHs in marine samples: water, sediments and organi sms. Conventional fluorescence spectroscopy, synchronous fluorescence spect roscopy, Shpolskii fluorescence spectroscopy and high performance liquid ch romatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection constitute the most interes ting analytical techniques for the determination of these pollutants.