Organic Extracts from Solids

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) and Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) are excellent alternatives to traditional extraction methods, with both being used independently for clean-up and/or analyte concentration prior to chromatographic analysis. While SFE has been demonstrated to be an excellent method for extracting organic compounds from solid matrices such as soil and food (36, 37), SPE has been mainly used for diluted liquid samples such as water, biological fluids and samples obtained after-liquid-liquid extraction on solid matrices (38, 39). The coupling of these two techniques (SPE-SFE) turns out to be an interesting method for the quantitative transfer... 

Soxhlet extraction is probably the most widely used method for the extraction of organic analytes from solid samples. The... 

Work is in progress to validate the MAE method, proposed for EPA, in a multi-laboratory evaluation study. Nothing similar has been reported for additives in polymeric matrices. Dean el al. [452] have reviewed microwave-assisted solvent extraction in environmental organic analysis. Chee et al. [468] have reported MAE of phthalate esters (DMP, DEP, DAP, DBP, BBP, DEHP) from marine sediments. The focus to date has centred on extractions from solid samples. However, recent experience suggests that MAE may also be important for extractions from liquids. 

S. B. Hawthorne, D. J. Miller and M. S. Krieger, Coupled SFE-GC a rapid and simple technique for extracting, identifying and quantitating organic analytes from solids and sorbent resins , 7. Chromatogr. Sci. 27 347-354 (1989). 

EXTRACTION OF SEMIVOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS FROM SOLID MATRICES... 

Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) is also known as pressurized fluid extraction (PFE) or pressurized liquid extraction (PLE). It uses conventional solvents at elevated temperatures (100 to 180°C) and pressures (1500 to 2000 psi) to enhance the extraction of organic analytes from solids. ASE was introduced by Dionex Corp. (Sunnyvale, CA) in 1995. It evolved as a consequence of many years of research on SFE [45], SFE is matrix dependent and often requires the addition of organic modifiers. ASE was developed to overcome these limitations. It was expected that conventional solvents would be less efficient than supercritical fluids, which have higher diffusion coefficients and lower viscosity. However, the results turned out to be quite the opposite. In many cases, extraction was faster and more complete with organic solvents at elevated temperature and pressure than with SFE. Extensive research has been done on the extraction of a variety of samples with ASE. ASE was approved by EPA as a standard method in 1996. 

It should be noted that microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) discussed in this chapter is different from microwave-assisted acid digestion. The former uses organic solvents to extract organic compounds from solids, while the latter uses acids to dissolve the sample for elemental analysis with the organic contents being destroyed. Microwave-assisted digestion of metals is covered in Chapter 5. 

EXTRACTION OF VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS FROM SOLIDS AND LIQUIDS... 

Other organic compounds such as phenols [40], hydrocarbons [267], polymer additives [268,269] and natural compounds [270] have also been extracted from a wide range of solid matrices with good results. This confirms that, under optimal conditions of solvent, microwave power and exposure time, etc., the MAE technique is suitable for the extraction of organic compounds from solid samples. 

Supercritical Fluids (SFs) allow analytes to be extracted from solid samples, i.e., marine sediments, faster and more efficiently since they have lower viscosity and higher diffusivity than liquid solvents (56). CO2 is the most widely used supercritical fluid with or without a modifier, e.g. methanol and toluene. A very exhaustive discussion on the role of a modifier in the enhancement of the extraction efficiency was recently published (39). Few procedures have been described in the literature based on SFE of organic pollutants from environmental samples, including PCBs and PAHs (39, 41, 56-59). Generally, the extraction is performed... 

V. Lopez-Avila. R. Young, J. Benedicto, P. Ho, R. Kim, W. Beckert, Extraction of organic pollutants from solid samples using microwave energy. Anal. Chem., 67 (1995), 2096-2102. 

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