EPA Method 525.2, Determination of Organic Compounds in Drinking Water by Liquid-Solid Extraction and Capillary Column Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, can be used as a basis for developing a liquid-solid extraction method for EPA Method 625, Methods for Organic Chemical Analysis of Municipal and Industrial Wastewater. Unlike the drinking water methods, however, analysis of wastewaters need to contend with particulates. The AutoTrace™ 280 Solid-Phase Extraction (SPE) instrument has features that allow analysis of samples even with high amounts of suspended solids.

XAD resins are used as solid phase extraction materials for applications in water and air sampling. When received, resins are wet and contain contaminants. The current methods for cleaning and eluting require large amounts of solvent and time. Here, an XAD-2 resin is cleaned using ASE, then spiked with organochlorine pesticides (OCP) and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) standards and eluted using ASE. The results show that ASE effectively and efficiently cleans and dries the resin without damaging the particles, and is able to elute OCP and PAH compounds from XAD resin with good results.

Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE) uses solvents at elevated temperatures and pressures to extract organic materials from solid and semisolid samples in a fraction of the time required by traditional extraction procedures. This Application Note details procedures for extracting the following contaminants from animal tissues: Dioxins/Furans, Polybrominated Flame Retardants (PBDE), PCBs, pesticides, PAHs, and organo-tin.

Accelerated solvent extraction is an established technique to efficiently extract contaminants in solid and semisolid sample matrices with less solvent and time. Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are considered toxic and carcinogenic, and therefore classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Typically, PAHs and PCBs are extracted separately, using different solvent combinations. Our study demonstrates extraction of PAHs and PCBs using a single method from spiked mussel and from a soil spiked with a standard reference materials (SRMs).

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) are toxic at low concentrations and therefore highly regulated. Additionally, these contaminants are difficult to extract. Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE) is an equivalent extraction method for U.S. EPA Methods 3545. ASE uses solvents at elevated temperatures and pressures, thereby increasing the extraction efficiency while consuming small amounts of solvent at significantly less time. Here ASE has been used to extract PCDDs and PCDFs from ground chimney brick, urban dust, fly ash, and sediment samples.