Separation and clean-up effects in medium pressure liquid extraction

A new concept for extraction of polluted soil is described. The idea is to modify a given soil by grinding it with silica gel or aluminium oxide to destroy the interaction between the soil matrix and the pollutant. The produced homogeneous phase can be used as a stationary phase of a medium pressure liquid chromatographic system. The elution profiles of the substances are shown to depend on the nature of the modifier. However, the aspired separation of the PAH, PCB and the halogenated aliphatics could not completely be achieved. Using aluminium oxide the extraction of the selected pollutants showed moderate recoveries only, but no clean-up of the eluates was necessary prior to measurement.