A field-portable supercritical fluid extractor for characterizing sources of waterborne organic compounds

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is a viable alternative to current methods of liquid extraction for analyzing semivolatile organic compounds in contaminated solid matrices, such as soil and sediment. Because the SFE method is rapid (less than 30 min), large quantities of glassware and large volumes of solvent are not required, and there are fewer sample-handling and sample-preparation steps than in conventional liquid extraction methods, SFE lends itself to in-the-field extraction of solid samples. Laboratory-scale and portable SFE instruments were designed and tested both in the laboratory and in the field. The SFE method was validated through two recovery studies using individual polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) standards ranging from two to six rings in size and through two Soxhlet extraction comparison studies. Supercritical fluid extraction followed by gas chromatography was applied to 20 coal-tar-contaminated soil samples from three locations, 10 petroleum-oil-tar-contaminated soil samples, and 20 polychlorinated-biphenyl-contaminated soil samples. The SFE apparatus was transported and used in the field at four locations across the United States. Carbon dioxide was used as the extraction fluid