Microwave-assisted solvent extraction of environmental samples

In recent years, microwave-assisted extraction has attracted growing interest as it allows rapid extractions of solutes from solid matrices, with extraction efficiency comparable to that of the classical techniques. In particular, numerous applications of this recent technique deal with the extraction of pollutants from environmental samples. This review gives a brief presentation of the theory of microwave and extraction systems, a discussion of the main parameters that influence the efficiency, and the main results on the applications to environmental matrices. Finally, the performance of this technique is compared to that from classical extractions (sonication and Soxhlet extraction) and recent techniques (supercritical fluid extraction and accelerated solvent extraction). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.