Extraction techniques
Sustainable chlordecone remediation in the French West Indies – Detection and environmental rehabilitation

A prerequisite for the accurate quantification of chlordecone and/or its metabolites is effective extraction from its original matrix. Due to chlordecone’s aforementioned cage-like structure and its chemical properties, its extraction is particularly challenging. In particular, tropical soils tend to strongly retain the molecule. Furthermore, due to their different chemical properties, the extraction steps for degradation products may differ from those for the chlordecone molecule. Since degradation studies are relatively recent, most extraction methods are optimized for chlordecone in a given matrix, without accounting for metabolites.