Food safety is the basis of consumer health protection and requires, among other things, the identification and quantification of all those contaminants that may be harmful to humans and animals. In order to take care of this important aspect, the scientific community is increasingly engaged in the development of reliable analytical methodologies to isolate such contaminants from food matrices. Among the strategies currently employed in this regard, some can be defined ‘conventional’ such as liquid–liquid extraction (LLE), solid–liquid extraction (SLE) as well as solid-phase extraction (SPE). These approaches are the most widely used, either in their traditional version or in the form of variants based, for example, on the use of new solvents (e.g., deep eutectic solvent, DSE-LLE), stationary phases with special properties (e.g., magnetic SPE) or aimed at minimising the amount of material (e.g., dispersive LLE and SPE). In addition to these, there is also a series of more ‘advanced’ approaches involving the use of instrumental extraction technologies that allow the extraction of analytes to be conducted more efficiently by the application of energy forms, as in the case of microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), pressurised liquid extraction (PLE) or ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE), which are also characterised by traditional and more sophisticated variants. Finally, the large family of QuEChERS (Quick, Efficient, Cheap, Rudge and Safe) methods is slowly gaining ground both in the determination of specific contaminant classes and in multi-target analysis. This chapter will provide an overview of current trends in the extraction of contaminants from food samples.
Chapter 4 - Handling of food samples
Marco Ciulu
2025-01-01
Abstract
Food safety is the basis of consumer health protection and requires, among other things, the identification and quantification of all those contaminants that may be harmful to humans and animals. In order to take care of this important aspect, the scientific community is increasingly engaged in the development of reliable analytical methodologies to isolate such contaminants from food matrices. Among the strategies currently employed in this regard, some can be defined ‘conventional’ such as liquid–liquid extraction (LLE), solid–liquid extraction (SLE) as well as solid-phase extraction (SPE). These approaches are the most widely used, either in their traditional version or in the form of variants based, for example, on the use of new solvents (e.g., deep eutectic solvent, DSE-LLE), stationary phases with special properties (e.g., magnetic SPE) or aimed at minimising the amount of material (e.g., dispersive LLE and SPE). In addition to these, there is also a series of more ‘advanced’ approaches involving the use of instrumental extraction technologies that allow the extraction of analytes to be conducted more efficiently by the application of energy forms, as in the case of microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), pressurised liquid extraction (PLE) or ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE), which are also characterised by traditional and more sophisticated variants. Finally, the large family of QuEChERS (Quick, Efficient, Cheap, Rudge and Safe) methods is slowly gaining ground both in the determination of specific contaminant classes and in multi-target analysis. This chapter will provide an overview of current trends in the extraction of contaminants from food samples.
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