Abstract: At present,the standard method SH/T 0806-2008 “Determination of aromatic hydrocarbon types in middle distillates-high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with refractive index detection” is used as the arbitration method of China for PAHs determination in vehicle diesel fuel. However, a series of problems have been exposed during the PAHs determination for some vehicle diesel fuel samples, including inconsistent separation sequences with different columns, poor system stability, and severe overlap of monocyclic and bicyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which make it difficult to accurately determine the PAHs. In this work, experimental and theoretical analysis were carried out to solve the above those problems, the chromatographic column was classified by improving the SPS (system performance solution), and the appropriate type of HPLC column for PAHs determination was selected. With the verification of several laboratories, it has been demonstrated that this solution can significantly improve the accuracy of PAHs determination and increase the system stability, and it can meet the precision requirements of SH/T 0806-2008.

Key words: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, diesel, high performance liquid chromatography, standard method