“…Soxhlet, saponification, accelerated solvent or microwave-assisted extraction) even in its current form; that is, USEPA Method 3550C (USEPA, 2007b). Nevertheless, there are numerous accounts in the literature where ultrasonic baths have been used for environmental organic extraction from soil/sediment samples that report comparable extraction efficiencies to the 'exhaustive' methods; for example, PAHs (De la Torre-Roche et al, 2009;Vane et al, 2007), PAHs and other organic compounds (Bossio et al, 2008), pesticides (Ozcan et al, 2009;Villaverde et al, 2008) and PCBs (Aydin et al, 2006). The success of these owes much to judicious solvent selection, which is a crucial consideration for optimum extraction efficiency using ultrasound (Swindell and Reid, 2007).…”