Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Sediments from Sicilian Coastal Area (Scoglitti) using Automated Soxhlet, GC-MS, and Principal Component Analysis

A methodology for the PAHs and PCBs congener determination in sediment sampleshas been revised. We determined the distributions of PAHs and PCBs in the superficialsediments of the Scoglitti (Italy) coastal area to provide data for comparison with othermarine systems and to hypothesize the sources. Extraction yield, for PCB, was neverless than 60% in most cases, while for PAHs, utilizing perdeuterated surrogate standard(benz[a]anthracene-d12 and anthracene-d10) was never less than 72%. The total concentrationof the 16 PAHs investigated, expressed as the sum of concentrations, PAHs,varied from 1–5087 μg/kg of dry matrix, while the PCBs ranged from detection limitto 36 μg/kg of dry matrix. Linear relationships were found between PAHs concentrationand organic matter percentages (R2 = 0.60) and water content and organic matterpercentages (R2 = 0.87). Isomeric ratios were used for discriminating between pyroliticand petroleum origin. The principal component analysis (PCA) has been conduced todiscriminate the different sampling sites in internal or external harbor area.