Ultrasound assisted extraction and determination of the carbohydrate fraction in marine sediments

In this paper, an ultrasound-acetic acid procedure for the simultaneous ext raction and hydrolysis of carbohydrates in marine sediments prior to their colorimetric determination is described. The main advantage of the proposed procedure is the improved analytical accuracy achieved. Extraction and hyd rolysis are quantitative since the oxidative reactions which cause the unde restimation of the total carbohydrate amount are minimized. Moreover the pr ocedure is fast, requiring only 5 h for the whole analysis (extraction, hyd rolysis and colorimetric determination by the phenol-sulphuric acid method) . The proposed procedure has recoveries generally higher than 80% and gives comparable results with the conventional 24 h HCl extraction. (C) 2000 Els evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.