DIN Standards Committee Food and Agricultural Products
Compost and digestate - Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) by gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC); German and English version FprEN 18261:2026
Abstract
This document specifies a method for quantitative determination of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) (see Table 1) in compost or digestate, using GC-MS, GCMS/MS or HPLC-UV-DAD/FLD covering a wide range of PAH contamination levels (see Table 1). Table 1 — Target analytes of this document Target analyte CAS-RN a Naphthalene 91–20–3 Acenaphthene 83–32–9 Acenaphthylene 208–96–8 Fluorene 86–73–7 Anthracene 120–12–7 Phenanthrene 85–01–8 Fluoranthene 206–44–0 Pyrene 129–00–0 Benz[a]anthracene 56–55–3 Chrysene 218–01–9 Benzo[b]fluoranthene 205–99–2 Benzo[k]fluoranthene 207–08–9 Benzo[a]pyrene 50–32–8 Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene 193–39–5 Dibenz[a,h]anthracene 53–70–3 Benzo[ghi]perylene 191–24–2 a CAS-RN Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number. The limit of detection depends on the determinants, the equipment used, the quality of chemicals used for the extraction of the sample and the clean-up of the extract. This document contains decision tables based on the properties of the sample and the extraction and clean-up procedure to be used. The method may be applied to the analysis of other PAH not specified in the scope, provided suitability is proven by proper in-house validation experiments. NOTE 1 When using fluorescence detection, acenaphthylene cannot be measured. NOTE 2 This method has been validated in an interlaboratory study with specific products that were present on the market during the study (as included in Annex B, being composted bark (20 mm to 40 mm), biowaste compost (Rottegrad 3),gGreen compost (Rottegrad 5, 0 mm to 15 mm), solid digestate (centrifuged and dried, raw sieved 0 mm to 12 mm) and growing media blend 1 (white peat, green compost, wood fibre, lime, inorganic fertilizer)).
Begin
2023-04-27
WI
00223116
Planned document number
DIN EN 18261
Project number
05702293
Responsible national committee
NA 057-03-01 AA - Soil improvers and growing media
Responsible european committee
CEN/TC 223/WG 4 - Analytical methods
draft standard
Compost and digestate - Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) by gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC); German and English version prEN 18261:2025
2025-11
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