Quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance for purity assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

The application of 1H quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance (1H qNMR) for purity determination of organic compounds is well documented in the literature. The aim of this work is to determine if the 1H qNMR method produces consistent values for the purity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and is sufficiently accurate for the certification of reference materials. For this purpose, 15 different commercial PAH standards had their purity evaluated by 1H qNMR. The purity values and the associated expanded uncertainty of the 15 analyzed PAH ranged from (97.21 ± 0.28)% to (99.52 ± 1.10)%. The expanded measurement uncertainties were acceptable for the certification of reference materials and the purity values were in the expected range, confirming, therefore, that qNMR is appropriate for this type of analysis.