Directly coupled supercritical fluid extraction-gas chromatographic analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls from environmental solids.

A method has been developed for the direct coupling of supercritical fluid extractions with gas chromatography (SFE-GC) that yields good chromatographic peak shapes and quantitative recovery of analytes from environmental solids with a total extraction and analysis time of less than one hour. Maximum sensitivity is achieved and analyte degradation or loss is minimized since the extracted species are quantitatively transferred into a fused-silica capillary gas chromatographic column for cryogenic focusing followed by normal GC analysis using flame ionization, electron-capture, or mass spectrometric (MS) detection. Coupled SFE-GC-MS determinations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from National Bureau of Standards urban dust (SRM 1649) gave excellent agreement with certified values.