Sample Preparation

A research group from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Thesaloniki, Greece) analyzed royal jelly, an important bee product, fortified with nine pesticides.

Researchers from US EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) and East Carolina University (Greenville, North Carolina) used supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) to recover aflatoxin B1 from fortified soil.

Chemists from the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, North Dakota) used solid-phase microextraction (SPME) to extract aldehydes from an aqueous solution.

A research group from the University of Lisbon (Lisbon, Portugal) studied the use of stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) with polyurethane and polydimethylsiloxane polymeric phases and high performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection for the analysis of six acidic pharmaceutical compounds in environmental water matrices such as river, sea, and wastewater samples.

A research group from BRGM (Orleans, France) and Ecole Superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles (Paris, France) used terbutylazine molecularly imprinted polymers following a pressurized liquid extraction step to remove interfering compounds from soil extracts containing the herbicide atrazine.

Researchers from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid, Spain) and Universität Dortmund (Dortmund, Germany) used a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) solid-phase extraction method in the analysis of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in environmental water samples.

Researchers from Hiroshima University (Hiroshima, Japan), Hiroshima Prefectural Police Headquarters (Hiroshima), Tokai University School of Medicine (Kanagawa, Japan), and GL Sciences Inc. (Saitama, Japan) developed a spin column device packed with octadecyl silane-bonded monolithic silica for extracting amphetamines and methylenedioxyamphetamines from urine.

Researchers from Universita degli Studi di Parma (Parma, Italy) used immunomagnetic beads to extract trace peanut allergen protein Ara h3/4 from breakfast cereals.

Scientists from Hoshi University (Tokyo, Japan) and the National Research Institute of Police Science (Chiba, Japan) employed stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) and thermal desorption gas chromatography?mass spectrometry (GC?MS) for analyzing 5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol, otherwise known as triclosan, in river water samples.

A research group from Yanbian University and the Key Laboratory of Organism Functional Factors of the Changbai Mountain (both Yanji City, Jilin Province, China) examined the effect of the vapor pressure of the extracting solvent on the enrichment factor in headspace liquid-phase microextraction.

Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and (Lyngby, Denmark) and the Danish Meat Research Institute (Roskilde, Denmark) used a mixed-mode reversed phase?anion exchange cleanup method followed by LC-MS with electrospray ionization time-of-flight detection to analyze mycophenolic acid in dry-cured ham, fermented sausage, and liver pate.

Microchip Biotechnologies Inc. (Dublin, California) has won a $625,000 U.S. Army contract for development of technology to rapidly detect, identify, and diagnose biological threats.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Guangdong, China) used high-speed countercurrent chromatography to purify two benzoxazinoid glucosides from Acanthus ilicifolius L.

NuGEN (San Carlos, California) and the Hamilton Company (Reno, Nevada) have assembled an automated, total target preparation system for high-throughput processing of clinical samples for global gene expression analysis.

Researchers from the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with headspace sorptive extraction-thermal desorption to analyze volatile compounds in wine vinegars.

Researchers at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), Ecole Nationale des Sciences Appliquees (Agadir, Morocco), and Institut Agronomique et Veterinaire Hassan II (Agadir, Morocco) developed a method for screening paraquat and diquat in olive oil samples.

Researchers from Edificio Anexo Marie Curie (Cordoba, Spain) used coacervates of decanoic acid reverse micelles to extract priority carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in waste and surface water for subsequent analysis by liquid chromatography-fluorimetry.

Scientists from various institutions in Taiwan collaborated on research to develop a derivatization method for preparing carbonyl compounds for analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

A research group from Kangwon National University (South Korea) set up a laboratory-scale test cooling bench with an airflow, temperature, and relative humidity controller and used it to simulate the unpleasant odor produced by an automobile air conditioner evaporator.

Researchers from Sao Cristovao and Salvador, Brazil employed a solid-phase microextraction (SPME-headspace gas chromatography (GC) method to analyze benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in water released from a waste treatment plant.

Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine and University of Vienna (Vienna, Austria) developed a selective method for analyzing a compound in corn, deoxynivalenol, based on immuno-ultrafiltration.

Chemists from Normal University and Wuhan University (both Wuhan, China) used an improved liquid-liquid-liquid microextraction method in the analysis of four phenolic compounds in water.

Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Leipzig, Germany) used the Chemcatcher aquatic passive sampling device to collect samples from a 1-day pulse contamination with the pesticide thiacloprid.

Scientists from the USDA';s Eastern Regional Research Center (Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania) analyzed 11 beta-lactam antibiotics in bovine kidney using a sample preparation method consisting of an acetonitrile-water extraction followed by a dispersive solid-phase extraction with a C18 sorbent, extract concentration, and filtration with syringeless filter vials.

A research group at Lund University (Lund, Sweden) fused a multifunctional peptide tag to the N-terminal ends of green fluorescent protein, lactate dehydrogenase, and human hemoglobin in preparation for separation via ion-exchange chromatography, immobilized metal-ion affinity chromatography, and hydrophobic interaction chromatography.