Evaluation of Co-solvents with supercritical fluid extraction of atrazine from soil

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) with CO(2) has been successfully applied to herbicide extractions from soil. The objectives of this work were to compare extraction efficiency of atrazine from soil using different types and quantities of co-solvent modifiers under a specified set of SFE instrument conditions and to determine the ruggedness of an optimized extraction program and co-solvent on several soils with varying characteristics. The effect of 18 co-solvents on atrazine extraction from Lufkin fine sandy loam was determined using a completely randomized design with six replications. Extractions of Lufkin soil using the more nonpolar co-solvents had recovery similar to extractions where no co-solvent was added. The co-solvents that showed high extraction efficiency, low incidences of restrictor plugging, and ease of cleaning extraction cells were acetone, acetone:water mixtures (with and without 1% triethylamine), and acetonitrile. The addition of 1% triethylamine (TEA) did not increase recovery significantly. The 9:1 acetone:water mixture with 1% TEA was used for the soil comparison because of the high atrazine recovery and low water content. No differences in atrazine recovery were detected between extractions of the four representative soils when the same extraction conditions were employed. No cleanup steps were included in the procedure, yet adequate chromatography results were obtained suggesting some selectivity for this procedure. These data indicate that SFE with optimized conditions and appropriate co-solvents is a relatively robust method that can effectively be used in soil extractions of atrazine.