Promises and pitfalls of supercritical fluid extraction in polychlorinated compound analyses

Abstract

The application of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) for the determination of organochlorine compounds in a variety of environmental matrices was explored. The results obtained show that SFE holds a clear advantage in the case of complex matrices such as biological tissues. The limiting factors for the applicability of this technique are the initial instrumentation costs and impurities in commercially available supercritical fluids such as CO 2 and N 2O.