ABSTRACT
Analysis of organic pollutants in environmental soil samples is an important task with respect to the protection of the environment.
Conventionally, organic contaminants in solid samples are examined by Soxhlet extraction, followed by separation and identification. Several methods have been proposed to reduce the use of organic solvents and to increase the speed of analysis, such as supercritical fluid extraction [1,2], accelerated solvent extraction [3], subcritical fluid solvent extraction [4,5] and headspace solid phase micro extraction [6,7]. Separation and phase identification methods such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry are typically used to examine the extracts. Attenuated total reflectance-infra-red spectroscopy [9] provides a direct method for detecting organic species in samples of varying physical composition and is very suitable for handling aqueous solutions because of the evanescent wave penetrates into the adjoining medium for a short distance. Examples of these techniques are reviewed below. Pressurised liquid extraction has been applied to the determination of polyacrylic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil [126].
