Fractionation of organic extracts of environmental water samples by low pressure column chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography techniques

Abstract

Prefractionation procedures based on high performance liquid chromatography (hplc) and low pressure column chromatography (lpcc) were developed and applied to the separation of components in extracts of environmental samples. Effective fractionation was obtained using solvent systems based on hexane, carbon tetrachloride, dichloromethane, and ether for elution on lpcc Florisil and hplc silica columns. This facilitated the identification of over thirty compounds consisting mainly of aliphatic and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, phthalate esters, phenols, and pesticides in environmental samples extracted from water. Chromatographic background levels were minimized, and compounds whose chromatographic peaks were unresolved before fractionation were isolated into separate fractions. This afforded more highly reliable gc/ms identifications. Prefractionation also served to retard the rapid degradation of capillary columns which was caused by the injection of unfractionated samples.