SALTING-OUT SOLVENT-EXTRACTION FOR PRECONCENTRATION OF NEUTRAL POLAR ORGANIC SOLUTES FROM WATER

It appears there has been very little exploitation of salting out with water-miscible solvents for extraction of organic solutes from water. Although this technique is known to many (particularly older) chemists, we found no specific literature references to salting-out of organic compounds as a prelude to their determination in water, save one recent abstract (1). This technique has, however, been used for a number of years for extraction of metal-chelates into organic solvents prior to atomic absorption, high-performance liquid chromatography, polarographic, or colorimetric analysis (2–5). So, although we freely acknowledge that the technique itself is not new, we do feel that its potential applications in organic trace analysis of water have not been properly appreciated or utilized. We describe here just one of many possible examples, which has found considerable utility in our laboratory. © 1990, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.