Recent developments in green membrane-based extraction techniques for pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis

Abstract

Monitoring of target analytes (e.g., pharmaceuticals, endogenous compounds) present in biological samples usually requires a preliminary step toward analyte isolation from surrounding matrix and enrichment for trace analysis. Evident developments have been recently made to introduce novel "green" analytical approaches (which keep the requirements of Green Analytical Chemistry - GAC) being effective, economical, eco-friendly, and amenable to hyphenated analytical instrumentations. Modern membrane-based extraction techniques provide the smart options against classical sample preparations e.g., liquid-liquid extraction (LLE).These approaches are more stable and allow trace determination of analytes in complex matrices (e.g., biological samples), with high extraction recovery and selectivity. Simultaneously, drawbacks of LLE such as large consumption of organic solvents and the need for tedious handling are eliminated. This paper thoroughly overviews important features and applications of membrane- based extraction techniques with special focus on pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis since 2013. Different driving forces of mass transfer across the membrane were summarized and membrane-based extraction techniques were described along with their advantages/disadvantages as well.

Keywords: Bioanalysis; Green chemistry; Membrane extraction; Pharmaceutical analysis; Sample preparation.