Extraction of leachable metals from soil with supercritical carbon dioxide

Metal ions spiked on soil matrix can be quantitatively extracted by supercr itical carbon dioxide containing dithiocarbamate reagents. When applying th is extraction technique to real soil samples, only a fraction of the native metals present in the soil can be extracted. TCLP (Toxicity Characteristic s Leaching Procedure) results indicate that the leachable metals in the soi l are essentially all removed by the supercritical fluid extraction method. This in situ chelation supercritical fluid extraction technique appears to provide a method of analyzing and removing leachable metals from contamina ted soil.