Test of microwave, ultrasound and Bligh & Dyer extraction for quantitative extraction of bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs) from marine sediments

Microwave, ultrasound and Bligh & Dyer extraction methods were tested for the yield of bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs) from sediments and their potential to bias compound distributions. Differences in the concentration of abundant BHPs were not apparent for the three methods. However, the two phase solvent Bligh & Dyer extraction method generally showed greater extraction efficiency for minor BHPs containing an amino group. Our comparison demonstrates that all three methods are suitable for the extraction of BHPs, but quantitative comparisons of individual compounds between studies using different extraction approaches may be biased due to different extraction efficiency for amino BHPs.