Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in wastewater samples from the sewage system of Konya-Turkey

In this work, PCB and PAH analyses are performed on wastewater samples from the sewage system of Konya, Turkey. The analytical method includes a liquid-liquid extraction, a clean-up procedure and a quantification step. Extraction of samples with n-hexane is followed by pre-separation of PCB from PAH with a combined aluminasilica column. PCB are identified and quantified by GCECD, whereas GC-FID is used for PAH determination. The recovery rates of the method used to analyze PCB and PAH in the samples are > 80% with RSD of < 10%. Some of PCB and PAH are determined in the samples analyzed, detection frequencies (number of detection in 5 sample for each sampling point) of these compounds are low. In all points of sampling, the highest concentrations belong to PCB 52 and Naphthalene, (0.875 ngL(-1) with frequency of detection 5) (42.60 ngL(-1) with frequency of detection 2), respectively.