Comparisons of Microwave-Assisted Extraction, Simultaneous Distillation-Solvent Extraction, Soxhlet Extraction and Ultrasound Probe for Polycyclic Musks in Sediments: Recovery, Repeatability, Matrix Effects and Bioavailability

Abstract

The extraction method of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) has become a popular issue due to the emergence of PPCPs as contaminants. In this work, polycyclic musks, a typical type of PPCPs, were selected to test various techniques including microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), simultaneous distillation-solvent extraction (SDSE), Soxhlet extraction (SE), and ultrasound probe (UP). MAE and UP proved to be more effective pretreatment techniques than SE and SDSE, with high recovery, repeatability, accuracy, efficiency, little solvent consumption, and acceptable matrix effects. Notably, the chemical methods usually did not work well for the determination of bioavailability and the environmental fate of pollutants was overestimated. In this work, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was used as the ecological receptor to evaluate the bioavailability of chemical pollutants. The concentrations of polycyclic musks in sediments by way of UP extraction had a significant correlation (R 2 > 0.9, P < 0.01) with the concentrations in roots of wheat and the changes of chlorophyll, malondialdehyde and peroxidase in leaves of wheat. These changes suggest that the concentrations of polycyclic musks in sediments using UP extraction were comparable with the level of those in vivo. Through this work, it was discovered that using UP with a different solvent was suitable for determining total concentrations and the bioavailable fractions in sediments.