Abstract

In recent years, the development of highly efficient analytical techniques is of great importance, however, the direct analysis of complex sample matrix is still impossible in many cases. Therefore, the step of sample preparation is commonly involved in an analytical procedure. Over the years, it has been realized that the major source of inaccuracy and imprecision on general analysis results from the operations associated to sample pre-treatment. Moreover, due to the fact that technologies and/or methodology of sample preparation have yet to adapt instruments development as well as meet target analyte requirements in identification, qualitative and quantitative analysis, great efforts are currently being focused on improvement of sample preparation [Yunyan et al., 2014]. Without any doubt, sample pre-treatment is the basic as well as crucial step of the whole analytical procedure. Despite the fact, that many analytical methods for the clean-up and concentrate samples exist, two of them meaning solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) remain the most widely techniques used. It is well known, that LLE technique has many drawbacks such as time-consuming, difficult to automate, tedious, uses large volumes of toxic organic solvents that may cause environmental pollution, are expensive and cause extra operational costs for waste treatment. In comparison to LLE, SPE is characterized by less solvent consumption, however, the usage can still be considered significant.

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