Supercritical fluid extraction of polychlorinated biphenyls and pesticides from soil. Comparison with other extraction methods.

A comparison is made of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) with two other techniques widely used for the extraction of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides in soil. Extraction conditions for the SFE of PCBs and pesticides were first determined. An experimental approach was set up to determine the influence of different extraction parameters such as pressure, extraction time, static and dynamic extraction, restrictor type and collection solvent for off-line SFE. The use of carbon dioxide at 50 degrees C and 20 MPa, 10 min static followed by 20 min dynamic extraction with collection in iso-octane were been found to be the optimum conditions. Two types of soil, with a low and high content of organic carbon, respectively, spiked with 16 PCBs and organochlorine pesticides with a wide range of volatility and polarity at a level of 5 ng/g dry matter, were used as test materials. Conventional solvent extraction gives a good extraction yield for soil with a low content of organic carbon, but for peat soil the recoveries decrease dramatically to 30% for DDE, DDT and PCB 138 and 153. The recoveries with Soxhlet extraction are good, but an extra clean-up step before analysis is necessary. SFE gives good extraction yields for PCBs and organochlorine pesticides, varying between 85 and 105% with a reproducibility of 5% for each component for both types of soil. SFE is a fast, clean and reproducible method for the extraction of PCBs and organochlorine pesticides from these two soil matrices.