Liquid phase microextraction integrated into a microchip device for the extraction of fluoroquinolones from urine samples

Visualization and Analysis of Mapping Knowledge Domain of Fluid Flow Related to Microfluidic Chip

Microfluidic chips are important tools to study the microscopic flow of fluid. To better understand the research clues and development trends related to microfluidic chips, a bibliometric analysis of microfluidic chips was conducted based on 1115 paper records retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. CiteSpace and VOSviewer software were used to analyze the distribution of annual paper quantity, country/region distribution, subject distribution, institution distribution, major source journals distribution, highly cited papers, coauthor cooperation relationship, research knowledge domain, research focuses, and research frontiers, and a knowledge domain map was drawn. The results show that the number of papers published on microfluidic chips increased from 2010 to 2023, among which China, the United States, Iran, Canada, and Japan were the most active countries in this field. The United States was the most influential country. Nanoscience, energy, and chemical industry and multidisciplinary materials science were the main fields of microfluidic chip research. Lab on a Chip, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, and Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering were the main sources of papers published. The fabrication of chips, as well as their applications in porous media flow and multiphase flow, is the main knowledge domain of microfluidic chips. Micromodeling, fluid displacement, wettability, and multiphase flow are the research focuses in this field currently. The research frontiers in this field are enhanced oil recovery, interfacial tension, and stability.

Green strategies using solvent-free biodegradable membranes in microfluidic devices. Liquid phase microextraction and electromembrane extraction

In this work, a novel solvent-free microfluidic method based liquid phase microextraction has been proposed for the first time. A comprehensive study of liquid phase microextraction (LPME) and electromembrane extraction (EME) implemented in microfluidic formats has been carried out to investigate the efficiency of biodegradable membranes (such as agarose) without organic solvent to develop fully environmental microfluidic methods. For this study, non-polar and polar basic compounds (five) were selected as model analytes and different agarose membrane compositions were synthesized and tested with and without organic solvent (solvent-free). Under optimal experimental conditions, the extraction efficiencies obtained using solvent-free LPME-chip devices were similar to the ones obtained using solvent-free EME-chip devices at very low voltages (0.25 V), however, LPME microfluidic format was selected due to its simplicity. The proposed green microfluidic device was successfully applied in urine samples with recoveries between 80 and 93% for all analytes and relative standard deviation below 7% for all analytes. Results were compared with experiments previously conducted using conventional (polypropylene) membranes, observing that solvent-free microfluidic systems based on biodegradable solid support materials have proven to be an attractive alternative and offered the same advantages in terms of membrane stability allowing consecutive extractions compared to supported liquid membranes (SLM) microfluidic methods.

An improved microfluidic device to enhance the enrichment factors in liquid phase microextraction: application to the simultaneous extraction of polar and non-polar acids in biological samples

A new microfluidic device to enhance the enrichment factor in miniaturized systems is proposed. The microfluidic system was design for liquid phase microextractions, and it was applied to the simultaneous extraction of acidic compounds of a wide range of polarity (0.5 < log P < 3). The device operated under stagnant acceptor phase conditions and all the operational parameters involved were optimized. Tributyl phosphate was found to be a new highly efficient supported liquid membrane to simultaneously extract analytes of very different polarities. The optimal donor and acceptor phase were pH 2 and pH 13, respectively. The donor flow rate and the extraction time were investigated simultaneously, offering great versatility with high enrichment factors (EFs). Limits of quantitation were within 0.02 and 0.09 µg mL^-1 for all compounds at 10 µL min^-1 as donor flow rate and 20-min extractions, offering EFs between 11 and 18 with only 200-µL sample volume consumption. The method was successfully applied to human urine samples, observing recoveries between 47 and 90% for all compounds. This new proposed microfluidic system increases the wide range of applications, especially when the analytes are present in lower concentrations in the sample.

Solid supports and supported liquid membranes for different liquid phase microextraction and electromembrane extraction configurations. A review

Liquid phase microextraction (LPME) and electromembrane microextraction (EME) can be considered as two of the most popular techniques in sample treatment today. Both techniques can be configurated as membrane-assisted techniques to carry out the extraction. These supports provide the required geometry and stability on the contact surface between two phases (donor and acceptor) and improve the reproducibility of sample treatment techniques. These solid support pore space, once is filled with organic solvents, act as a selective barrier acting as a supported liquid membrane (SLM). The SLM nature is a fundamental parameter, and its selection is critical to carry out successful extractions. There are numerous SLMs that have been successfully employed in a wide variety of application fields. The latter is due to the specificity of the selected organic solvents, which allows the extraction of compounds of a very different nature. In the last decade, solid supports and SLM have evolved towards "green" and environmentally friendly materials and solvents. In this review, solid supports implemented in LPME and EME will be discussed and summarized, as well as their applications. Moreover, the advances and modifications of the solid supports and the SLMs to improve the extraction efficiencies, recoveries and enrichment factors are discussed. Hollow fiber and flat membranes, including microfluidic systems, will be considered depending on the technique, configuration, or device used.

Microfluidic liquid-phase microextraction based on natural deep eutectic solvents immobilized in agarose membranes

In liquid-phase microextraction (LPME), the sample and the acceptor are separated by a synthetic organic solvent, which is immobilized in a porous polymeric membrane of polypropylene or polyvinylidene fluoride. The organic solvent serves as extraction phase, while the polymeric membrane serves as support membrane. The combination of extraction phase and support membrane is termed supported liquid membrane (SLM). In this paper, we developed for the first time fully green and biodegradable supported SLMs, based on natural deep eutectic solvents as extraction phase and agarose as support membrane. This highly green approach was developed and studied with sulfonamide pharmaceuticals as model analytes, and performance was compared with LPME using conventional SLMs. All experiments were conducted in a microfluidic device. Model analytes were extracted from acidic sample (pH1.0) and into alkaline acceptor (pH12.0). Both sample and acceptor were pumped at 1 μL min^-1 into the microfluidic device, and the optimal SLM was based on 3 µL of coumarin and thymol (1:2 molar ratio) as the extraction phase. The proposed green microfluidic device was successfully applied for the determination of sulfonamides in urine samples with spiking recoveries in the range of 77-100%. LPME with deep eutectic solvent immobilized in agarose showed similar performance as with conventional SLMs. Thus, the data presented in this paper demonstrate that highly green microextraction systems may be developed in the future, based on natural solvents and biodegradable materials.

An efficient microfluidic device based on electromembrane extraction for the simultaneous extraction of acidic and basic drugs

The simultaneous extraction of acidic and basic compounds is considered a great challenge. In this work, an efficient and fast microfluidic device is described for the simultaneous determination of acidic and basic drugs by two electromembrane extraction, offering extraction efficiencies over 98% for all analytes in human urine samples and solving the difficulties encountered to date. The sample is submitted into the device and the collected acceptor phase is directly analyzed by diode array detector and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). The device consisted of three poly(methylmethacrylate) layers and four electrodes to perform EME in two steps in a single device. Two acidic analytes (ketoprofen and naproxen) and two basic analytes (amitriptyline and loperamide) were selected as model analytes. The device proposed works under stable electric field conditions, low current intensities that confers great stability to the supported liquid membrane. After a comprehensive study of the SLM, 1:1 2-nitrophenyl octhyl ether:dodecanol was selected as optimal. This device has also been successfully applied in 1:2 diluted bovine plasma samples with recoveries over 84% and a relative standard deviation below 6%. This microfluidic device needs small sample volumes (lower than 50 μL) and offers short extraction times (10 min) and excellent clean-up. Furthermore, it has proven to be a robust and reproducible device after more than 30 consecutive extractions, and thanks to the low potential required (5 V), it allows its compatibility with a single battery.

Green microfluidic liquid-phase microextraction of polar and non-polar acids from urine

In this work, hippuric acid (log P = 0.5), anthranilic acid (log P = 1.3), ketoprofen (log P = 3.6), and naproxen (log P = 3.0) were simultaneously extracted by a green microfluidic device based on the principles of liquid-phase microextraction (LPME). Different deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were investigated as supported liquid membrane (SLM), and a mixture of camphor and menthol as eutectic solvents in the molar ratio 1:1 was found to be highly efficient for the simultaneous extraction of non-polar and polar acidic drugs. LPME was conducted for 6 min per sample. Urine sample was delivered to the system at 1 μL min^-1, and target analytes were extracted exhaustively (75-100% recovery) across the DES SLM, and into pure aqueous phosphate buffer pH 11.0 delivered as acceptor at 1 μL min^-1. The acceptor was analyzed with liquid chromatography-UV detection. Interestingly, the DES enabled extraction of both the polar and non-polar model analytes at the same time; all chemicals were green and non-hazardous, and the chemical waste was less than 1 mg per sample.

On-line multi-residue analysis of fluoroquinolones and amantadine based on an integrated microfluidic chip coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

An on-line multi-residue qualitative and quantitative analysis method for fluoroquinolones and amantadine using an integrated microfluidic chip was developed prior to directly coupling to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (QQQ-MS). Six parallel channels consisting of sample filtration units and micro solid phase extraction (micro-SPE) columns were present in the specifically designed microfluidic device. Firstly, the impurities in the sample solution were trapped by the micropillars in the filtration units. The solution passed through the micro-SPE units packed with hydrophilic-lipophilic balanced (HLB) particles, and then the two classes of drugs were enriched. After washing, the targets were eluted and immediately electrosprayed for MS analysis. This approach allowed effective filtration, enrichment, elution, and MS detection without the introduction of an additional separation step after SPE. Direct electrospray ionization (ESI)-MS in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode could not only ensure the high sensitivity of quantitative analysis, but also achieved accurate qualitative analysis towards targets using the MRM ratios, reducing the possibility of false positives. Good linear relationships were obtained by the internal standard (IS) method with a linear range of 1-200 ng mL^-1 (R² > 0.992). The mean recoveries of the eight target analytes were from 85.2% to 122% with the relative standard deviation (RSD) ranging from 5.6% to 20.3%. All this demonstrated that the developed microfluidic device could be a useful tool for rapid detection in the field of food safety.

Selective extraction and enhanced-sensitivity detection of fluoroquinolones in swine body fluids by liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry: Application in long-term monitoring in livestock

To ensure food safety in livestock industries, developing a non-lethal and cost-effective detection method for the long-term monitoring of veterinary antibiotics in animals will be beneficial to avoid unnecessary losses. In this study, a highly-selective extraction using dispersive micro solid-phase extraction method coupled with an enhanced-sensitivity detection by pre-column dilution injection and liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry was used to determine the restricted fluoroquinolones (FQs) in swine body fluids. The proposed method showed good linear coefficients higher than 0.999, and high sensitivity with the LODs and LOQs in the range of 0.02-0.03 μg/L and 0.06-0.1 μg/L in swine body fluids, respectively. For further evaluation, the adequate recoveries (85.3-112.8%), satisfactory repeatability (intra-day and inter-day precisions of 2.1%-8.2% and 3.8%-13.7%, respectively), and acceptable matrix effect (0.92-1.12) of the FQs were achieved. It has been successfully applied for analysis of the FQs in body fluids without sacrificing animals in the future.

Electrochemically Modulated Liquid-Liquid Extraction for Sample Enrichment

A new sample preparation method is proposed for the extraction of pharmaceutical compounds (Metformin, Phenyl biguanide, and Phenformin) of varied hydrophilicity, dissolved in an aqueous sample. When in contact with an organic phase, an interfacial potential is imposed by the presence of an ion, tetramethylammonium (TMA⁺), common to each phase. The interfacial potential difference drives the transfer of ionic analytes across the interface and allows it to reach up to nearly 100% extraction efficiency and a 60-fold enrichment factor in optimized extraction conditions as determined by HPLC analysis.