Determination of phthalate esters in airborne particulates by heterogeneous photo-Fenton catalyzed aromatic hydroxylation fluorimetry

Abstract The environmental contaminants phthalic acid esters (PAEs) were determined by aromatic hydroxylation fluorimetry combined with heterogeneous photo-Fenton process in the presence of vermiculite supported BiFeO 3 (VMT-BiFeO 3 ). In strong alkaline solution, PAEs were hydrolyzed into phthalates with no fluorescence, which then reacted with hydroxyl free radicals produced in photo-Fenton process catalyzed by VMT-BiFeO 3 to form the fluorescent hydroxyl phthalates. The fluorescence intensity was proportional to the concentration of PAEs with the maximum excitation and emission wavelength of 300 nm and 417 nm, respectively. A good linear relationship can be obtained in the range of 3.8 × 10 −7 to 4.8 × 10 −5  mol L −1 for DEP with correlation coefficient of 0.9997, and the sensitivity of the method was high with detection limit of 5.43 × 10 −8  mol L −1 . The method has been successfully applied to determine total PAEs in airborne particulates with satisfactory results.