Organic Pollutants in Water

Abstract

Solutions must be concentrated or the constituents must be isolated before trace amounts of the various organics present as complex mixtures in environmental water samples can be chemically analyzed or tested for toxicity. A major objective is to concentrate or isolate the constituents with minimum chemical alteration to optimize the generation of useful information. Factors to be considered in selecting a concentration technique include the nature of the constituents (e.g., volatile, nonvolatile), volume of the sample, and analytical or test system to be used. The principal methods currently in use involve (1) concentration processes to remove water from the samples (e.g., lyophilization, vacuum distillation, and passage through a membrane) and (2) isolation processes to separate the chemicals from the water (e.g., solvent extraction and resin adsorption). Selected methods are reviewed and evaluated.