Ion-pair liquid–liquid–liquid microextraction of nerve agent degradation products followed by capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductivity detection

Determination of nitrogen mustard degradation products in water samples using a portable capillary electrophoresis instrument

In this work, a new purpose-made portable CE instrument with a contactless conductivity detector was used for the determination of degradation products of nitrogen mustards in different water samples. The capillary was coated with poly(1-vinylpyrrolidone-co-2-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) to avoid analyte-wall interactions. The coating procedure was studied to obtain the best repeatability of the migration time of the analytes. Four different coating procedures were compared; flushing the capillary with the copolymer at 100 psi for 2 min at 60°C provided the best RSD values (<4%). The analytical method was also optimized. The use of 20 mM of MES adjusted to pH 6.0 with His as running buffer allowed a good baseline separation of the three analytes in different water samples without matrix interferences. The method permitted the detection of the three degradation products down to 5 μM.

Sensitive determination of thallium species in drinking and natural water by ionic liquid-assisted ion-pairing liquid-liquid microextraction and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

A fast and simple method involving separation and determination of thallium (Tl) species, based on novel ionic liquid-assisted ion pairing dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) method, was developed. Initially, Tl(III) was selectively complexed with chloride ion to form [TlCl(4)](-) chlorocomplex. Subsequently, tetradecyl(trihexyl)phosphonium chloride ionic liquid (CYPHOS(®) IL 101) was used to form the ion-pair with [TlCl(4)](-) anion followed by extraction. The DLLME procedure was developed by dispersing 80 μL of carbon tetrachloride with 100 μL of ethanol added to the aqueous solution. After DLLME, the upper aqueous phase containing Tl(I) only was removed and analysed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In contrast to Tl(III), Tl(I) species does not form neither stable nor anionic complexes with chloride ions and it was not extracted into the organic phase. Total Tl concentration was obtained by direct introduction of sample into ICP-MS instrument. The calibration graph for the analyte was linear with a correlation coefficient of 0.9989. Under optimal conditions, detection limit of Tl species was 0.4 ng L(-1). The relative standard deviation (n=10) at 1 ng mL(-1) Tl concentration level was 1.3% for Tl(I) and 1.5% for Tl(III). The method was successfully applied for fast speciation analysis of Tl at ultratrace levels in real water samples.

Recent progress for capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an attractive technique in separation science because of its high separation performance, short analysis time and low cost. Electrochemical detection (EC) is a powerful tool for CE because of its high sensitivity. In this review, developments of CE-EC from 2008 to August, 2011 are reviewed. We choose papers of innovative and novel results to demonstrate the newest and most important progress in CE-EC.

Considerations on the application of miniaturized sample preparation approaches for the analysis of organic compounds in environmental matrices

The miniaturization and improvement of sample preparation is a challenge that has been fulfilled up to a point in many fields of analytical chemistry. Particularly, the hyphenation of microextraction with advanced analytical techniques has allowed the monitoring of target analytes in a vast variety of environmental samples. Several benefits can be obtained when miniaturized techniques such as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) or liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) are applied, specifically, their easiness, rapidity and capability to separate and pre-concentrate target analytes with a negligible consumption of organic solvents. In spite of the great acceptance that these green sample preparation techniques have in environmental research, their full implementation has not been achieved or even attempted in some relevant environmental matrices. In this work, a critical review of the applications of LPME and SPME techniques to isolate and pre-concentrate traces of organic pollutants is provided. In addition, the influence of the environmental matrix on the effectiveness of LPME and SPME for isolating the target organic pollutants is addressed. Finally, unsolved issues that may hinder the application of these techniques for the extraction of dissolved organic matter from environmental samples and some suggestions for developing novel and less selective enrichment and isolation procedures for natural organic matter on the basis of SPME and LPME are included.

Rapid and direct determination of glyphosate, glufosinate, and aminophosphonic acid by online preconcentration CE with contactless conductivity detection

Rapid and direct online preconcentration followed by CE with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4)D) is evaluated as a new approach for the determination of glyphosate, glufosinate (GLUF), and aminophosphonic acid (AMPA) in drinking water. Two online preconcentration techniques, namely large volume sample stacking without polarity switching and field-enhanced sample injection, coupled with CE-C(4)D were successfully developed and optimized. Under optimized conditions, LODs in the range of 0.01-0.1 microM (1.7-11.1 microg/L) and sensitivity enhancements of 48- to 53-fold were achieved with the large volume sample stacking-CE-C(4)D method. By performing the field-enhanced sample injection-CE-C(4)D procedure, excellent LODs down to 0.0005-0.02 microM (0.1-2.2 microg/L) as well as sensitivity enhancements of up to 245- to 1002-fold were obtained. Both techniques showed satisfactory reproducibility with RSDs of peak height of better than 10%. The newly established approaches were successfully applied to the analysis of glyphosate, glufosinate, and aminophosphonic acid in spiked tap drinking water.