Abstract
Application of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) utilizing pure carbon dioxide for selective isolation of organophosphates from contaminated cereals has been tested.
At the beginning of the experiments the extractability of added standards from an empty extraction vessel (thimble) and from various materials such as filter paper, sand, Celite and anhydrous sodium sulfate was tested to estimate the behavior of organophosphates. Further method development was carried out using a spiked sample of flour, which was analyzed within the proficiency testing for organophosphorus pesticides analysis (round 7) organized by Food Analysis Performance Assessment Scheme (FAPAS, MAFF-UK).
Comparison of the SFE method with a classical method currently employed for sample preparation (i.e. extraction with acetone/methanol mixture followed by gel permeation chromatographic clean up) showed advantages of the SFE technique such as simplification of the sample preparation step and thereby significant speeding up of the determination of organophosphates in cereals.