Partitioning of selected environmental pollutants into organic matter as determined by solid-phase microextraction Original Research Article

Partitioning/sorption of selected environmental pollutants (PCBs, organochlorine insecticides, triazine and amide herbicides) into dissolved humic acids (HA), soil and mineral substances was evaluated by measuring their free concentrations by solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Compounds were chosen to cover a wide range of log Kow (2.2–7.6). Two different types of partitioning behaviour for dissolved HA were observed. Compounds with log Kow > 5 partitioned almost instantly into HA fraction and the remaining free fraction remained rather constant. Log KHA and log KDOC were calculated and found to be similar for commercial HA, HA standard and isolated HA. The behaviour of these compounds in soil suspension was similar, but strong sorption on CaCO3 and Florisil was also noticed. For compounds with log Kow < 5, we have not noticed significant changes in free concentrations in HA solutions over time. In soil suspension, however, some sorption/partitioning was observed over time for some compounds, but it was matching the sorption on CaCO3 and Florisil.