Key words: supercritical fluid extraction, determination of organic compounds, gas chromatography, GC/MS
Advantages and limitations of liquid extraction (LE) and conventional supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) from aqueous and solid matrixes (soil, polymers) as applied for gas chromatography (GC) and combined GC-mass-spectrometric analysis (GC/MS) of trace amounts of organic compounds are discussed. Novel method of SFE without use of organic solvent (solvent-free SFE) is developed. This technique allows to transfer the entire amount of extract (concentrate) into the GC injector. Solvent-free SFE and GC (GC/MS) based procedures for determination of manifold target organic compounds of different volatility and polarity in water on the level of 10-10 - 10-8% have been developed. For the determination and quantification of unknown organic impurities in polymers, some pharmaceuticals and in human hair analytical procedures based on GC/MS analysis of the whole concentrate isolated using solvent-free SFE have been developed. It is demonstrated that the newly developed technique permits to increase the number of isolated and analyzed impurities and to lower the detection limits as compared to LE.