We evaluated a method to determine organic carbon-normalized soil-water partition coefficients (
KOC) of 20 PAHsand 12 PCBs by desorption in the presence of a cosolvent(methanol fractions of 0.1-0.9) and at different temperatures(20-80
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C). The
KOC values, the deviation factor from idealsorption
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, and the desorption enthalpies
Hdes wereestimated by nonlinear regression of log
KOC on the methanolfractions and on
T. The
KOC values of individual compoundsvaried up to a factor of 100 among the studied 11 urbansoils. The calculated
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and
Hdes of individual compoundsvaried considerably among the soils (coefficients ofvariation 5-20% and 20-30%, respectively),
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increasedwith increasing hydrophobicity of the compounds. A sequentialextraction with four temperature/methanol fractioncombinations followed by a nonlinear regression allowedfor the direct determination of the
KOC,
, and
Hdes. The useof less temperature/methanol fraction combinationsrequires a suitable estimation of
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and
Hdes, as theirchoice may change the obtained
KOC values by up to a factorof 10. The proposed method is suitable for a routinedetermination of
KOC values of PAHs and PCBs for smallsoil samples (2-6 g) and low concentrations (down to 0.3mg kg
-1 of
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20 PAHs and 1.2
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g kg
-1 of
![](/images/entities/sum.gif)
12 PCBs).