Read all posts from December 2015

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Magnetic SPME in micro-fluidics, speciation of Hg in cells

Mercury is a well known toxicant with different exposure sources. Although its use on medical products is banned in many countries, other sources like environmental pollution or contaminated food still exist. Professor Bin Hu and co-workers have been recently researched how Hg species are distributed and even modified in cell cultures [1]. In their own words, this type of research is of paramount importance in order to fully understand the toxicity but also the cell protection mechanisms. (post)

Polypyrrole coated nylon fibers for disk-based solid phase extraction

The extraction of polar compounds from aqueous matrices is not a easy process due to the high solubility of these compounds into the sample that weakens the interactions with the extractant. Polymeric phases, comprising different monomer in their structure that may establish polar interactions and even ionic, have been widely used to solve this problem. Although there are some commercially available phases, the development of novel ones as well as the design of formats different than the conventional particle-packed column one are attractive research lines (post)

Molecularly imprinted polymers on the surface of TiO2 nanoparticles

The usefulness of molecularly imprinted polymers is unquestionable. They have been extensively used for the selective extraction of different families of compounds in a wide variety of samples. The main problem associated to these sorbents is the impossibility to ensure that a high percentage of the recognition sites are available for analyte interaction as they can be embebed into the polymeric structure. (post)

Rapid extraction of nucleic acids for quick diagnosis

Nucleic acids have several practical applications in Analytical Sciences as they can be used as biorecognition molecules (e.g. aptamer) in the design of sensors and even extraction phases. However, this post deals with those methods that are aimed to determining nucleic acids in samples of different origin (usually biosamples).(post)

Laser desorption combined with SPME for GC-MS analyses


We highlight today an article that describes the combination of laser desorption and solid phase microextraction (SPME) for the analysis of solid samples. The article has been published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry under the title "Laser desorption sample transfer for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry" (1). It is not necessary to describe the potential of SPME since it is a well established technique in almost every analytical laboratory.(post)

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Gold coated magnetic beads for electrochemical detection

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Rotating Disk Sorptive Extraction

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