DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF A MULTI-RESIDUE ANALYTICAL METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF N-ALKANES, LINEAR ALKYLBENZENES, POLYNUCLEAR AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS AND 4-NONYLPHENOL IN DIGESTED SEWAGE SLUDGES

An analytical method is presented that can be used to quantify a range of common sewage sludge contaminants and eliminates the need for lengthy clean-up or concentration stages. A method incorporating steam-distillation coupled with HPLC fractionation and GC/FID quantification has been method tested for a range of linear alkylbenzenes, n-alkanes, PAHs and 4-nonylphenol. The method has also been applied to anaerobically digested sewage sludges collected from two treatment works over a period of several months to provide data on temporal contaminant concentrations.