Environmentally friendly assessment of organic compound bioaccessibility using sub-critical water.

The evaluation of microbial availability of contaminants is of high importance for better reflecting the processes governing contaminant fate in soil and for establishing the risk associated with contaminated sites. A sub-critical water extraction technique was assessed for its potential to determine the microbially degradable fraction of [(14)C]phenanthrene-associated activity in two dissimilar soils at three different ageing times (14, 28 and 49 days). For the majority of determinations, no significant (p>0.05) difference between sub-critical water-extracted (14)C-activity at 160 degrees C and the fraction mineralized by catabolically active Pseudomonas sp. was observed. Collectively, the results suggested that the sub-critical water extraction technique was an appropriate technique for predicting the biodegradable fraction of phenanthrene-associated (14)C-activity in dissimilar soils following increasing soil-contaminant contact time.