Improving the Quality and Productivity of Environmental Extraction

The extraction of contaminants such as PCBs, semivolatile organic compounds, and PAHs from soils requires solvent extraction. Traditional methods including Soxhlet and some more modern methods require large volumes of solvents whereas microwave assisted extraction (MAE) overcomes these limitations, resulting in rapid sample preparation with reduced amounts of solvents while working at higher temperatures and pressures.

The extraction process is a partitioning of the compounds of interest from the sample matrix into the solvent within a closed vessel. EPA 3546 method provides guidelines to work with the MAE technology thus providing assurance of extraction. In addition there is the additional benefit of improved productivity for environmental laboratories.

The Milestone Ethos X microwave extraction system from Analytix can extract organic target compounds from soils in full compliance with EPA 3546 (100-115°C and 50-150 psi). The system is capable of processing up to 30 g of sample per vessel and up to 24 samples simultaneously thereby improving the limit of quantitation (LOQ) for analysis. This results in the capacity to extract over 200 samples in an 8-hour workday. The potential problems of contamination, memory effects, and cleaning are eliminated due to the use of disposable glass vials.

Disposable glass vials and contactless temperature control in all positions makes the Ethos X with Fastex-24 rotor a unique and innovative solution for the extraction of contaminants from soils, providing unmatched ease of use and low running costs.

The handling is very easy, the sample is weighed directly into the disposable glass vial, hexane/acetone or dichloromethane/acetone (1:1) is added, and the vessel is loaded into the FastEX rotor. After 10–20 min of microwave heating, the sample is ready to be filtered and analysed by gas chromatography.

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