Development of a soil extraction procedure for ecotoxicity characterization of energetic compounds

The acetonitrile\u2013sonication extraction method (US EPA Method 8330) associated with aquatic-based toxicity tests was examined to study the ecotoxicity of energetic substances in soil. Three studies were carried out: (1) toxicological characterization of different energetic substances to select a representative toxicant and to validate the choice of bioassays; (2) choice of an appropriate solvent to transfer acetonitrile extracts to the bioassay incubation media; and (3) optimization of Method 8330 using soil samples spiked with the toxicant. Initial studies indicated that pure 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was toxic toVibrio fischeri[Microtox; IC50(15 min) of 4.2 \u3bcM], whereas RDX was less toxic (IC20=181 \u3bcM) and HMX was not toxic up to its limit of water solubility (