Application of modified supercritical carbon dioxide extraction to microbial quinone analysis

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) was applied to extract microbial quinones from activated sludge. Identification and analysis was then performed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipped with ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) detector and photodiode array detector (PDA). Extracted microbial quinones were trapped and separated as menaquinones (MK) and ubiquinones (Q) species using two Sep-Pak Plus Silica cartridges joined in series. Four ubiquinones and 12 menaquinones species were identified in 0.1 g dried activated sludge based on retention time and spectrum analysis. Among the tested various polar solvents, methanol showed to be the best modifier, based on the highest total quinone content extracted and the lowest dissimilarity index. The diversity index of quinone and the number of quinone species using methanol-modified scCO2 were similar to that of the conventional method (organic solvent extraction).