Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

3.23 - Recent Advances in Sample Preparation and Related Analytical Methods in Environmental Monitoring

Description

Keywords: Chemical Sampling and Analysis, Environmental Chemistry, Wildlife

Understanding cocktail of chemicals we are daily exposed to remains one of the key challenges that regulators face when dealing with toxic pollutants and food safety. The latest advances in chromatographic techniques and MS instruments have facilitated the separation and detection of pollutants extracted from any type of environmental matrices, even at the trace level. Nevertheless, the accessibility of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) in environmental laboratories has dramatically facilitated the detection of unknown compounds.
However, sample preparation for the analysis of chemicals is a very critical aspect since these substances are intimately bonded to the components of the matrix to be studied. Automatic and semi-automatic sample preparation systems for water are becoming more common, offering the potential to improve the relevance of the sample reducing time, labor, and costs associated with traditional protocols. The major difficulties encountered in environmental samples are the complexity of matrices, which contain large amounts of possible interfering compounds, complicating the extraction and purification of samples. Analyzing cocktails of organic pollutants in small biota samples (e.g., fish tissue, algae, invertebrates) requires highly sensitive and miniaturized techniques to overcome matrix complexity and limited sample availability. The use of scaled-down methods for analyzing complex mixtures, small-sized wildlife organisms, or small sample quantities represents the key approach for trace-level detection in small biological matrices. The proposed session is open to contributions addressing one of the following topics:
Replacement of conventional extraction methods with advanced analytical methodologies for the extraction of small biota samples or small portions of tissues/volume using microextraction techniques (i.e. SPME, DLLME, SDME, DSPME, µPLE + µ-SPE clean-up, µUAE, LPME, SBSE, DPX tips)
Implementation of ambient ionization methods for direct sample analysis with minimal preparation including Desorption Electrospray Ionization (DESI) and Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART)
Application of Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling with a minimally invasive, cost-effective, and storage-friendly approach
Introduction of green solvents (DES, SUPRAS) to promote sustainable practices in laboratories and industries
Testing and calibrating passive samplers that can be deployed for long periods and hence allow to integrate contaminants over time

Chairs

Nicola Montemurro Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research - Spanish National Research Council (IDAEA-CSIC) Spain
Sandra Perez Solsona Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research - Spanish National Research Council (IDAEA-CSIC) Spain