Sample preparation procedure

Theoretical and applied aspects of microwave heating, as well as the advantages of its application are discussed for the individual analytical processes and also for the sample preparation procedures. Special attention is paid to the various preconcentration techniques, in part, sorption and extraction. Improvement of microwave-assisted solution preconcentration is shown on the example of separation of noble metals from matrix components by complexing sorbents. Advantages of microwave-assisted extraction and principles of choice of appropriate solvent are considered for the extraction of organic contaminants from solutions and solid samples by alcohols and room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs). 

Comparing results obtained by concerned decomposition techniques with the data certified (recommended), the two-stage microwave sample preparation procedure is preferable. 

Before the actual sample preparation procedure is described some general observations should first be made. However excellent the sample preparation and however sophisticated the equipment, the accuracy of the analysis will only be as good as the quality of the sample that is taken. If the sample is that of a reaction mixture from an organic synthesis laboratory, it is likely to be taken from a single bottle or container, by a professional chemist, and is likely to be truly representative of the bulk of the material. 

A number of different sample preparation procedures will now be described to illustrate how the appropriate method will vary, both with the physical nature of the sample, and the chemical character of the components of interest. The examples have been taken from a variety of sources, including application notes from the manufacturers of stationary phases and different chromatography journals. 

Typical examples that fall in this group would be the determination of the active ingredients in analgesic tablets for pharmaceutical use, such as aspirin or codeine or the analysis of a food product such as margarine. Examples of both these analyses will be described to illustrate the sample preparation procedure. 

Margarine is an example of a solid sample where the materials of interest are soluble in one solvent (in this case methanol) whereas the matrix materials, largely triglycerides, are not. As a consequence, the sample preparation procedure is relatively simple. The chromatographic separation is achieved by using the dispersive interactions between the hydrocarbon chains of the fatty acids and the hydrocarbon chains of a reversed phase. 

The analysis of a pharmaceutical tablet (6) requires sample preparation that is little more complex as most tablets contain excipients (a solid diluent) that may be starch, chalk, silica gel, cellulose or some other physiologically inert material. This sample preparation procedure depends on the insolubility of the excipient in methanol. As the components of interest are both acidic and neutral, the separation was achieved by exploiting both the ionic interactions between the organic acids and the adsorbed ion exchanger and the dispersive interactions with the remaining exposed reverse phase. 

Several solid surfaces, such as filter paper, sodium acetate, and silica gel chromatoplates with a polyacrylate binder, have been used in solid-surface luminescence work (1,2). Experimentally it is relatively easy to prepare samples for analysis. With filter paper, for example, a small volume of sample solution is spotted onto the surface, the filter paper is dried, and then the measurement is made. In many cases, an inert gas is passed over the surface during the measurement step to enhance the RTF signal. For powdered samples, the sample preparation procedure is somewhat more involved. Commercial instruments can be readily used to measure the luminescence signals, and a variety of research instruments have been developed to obtain the solid-surface luminescence data (1,2). 

Definition of the reference material, i.e. the matrix, the properties to be certified, and their desired levels Design of a sampling procedure Design of a sample preparation procedure... 

Ivermectin, a macrocyclic lactone, is also utilized to control parasites. An immunoassay was developed to determine ivermectin residues in bovine liver by Crooks etal. The sample preparation procedure was complex, involving tissue homogenization in acetonitrile, centrifugation, extraction with hexane (to remove lipids), evaporation and reconstitution in ethyl acetate, and passage through an SPE column followed... 

Sample preparation consists of homogenization, extraction, and cleanup steps. In the case of multiresidue pesticide analysis, different approaches can have substantially different sample preparation procedures but may employ the same determinative steps. For example, in the case of soil analysis, the imidazolinone herbicides require extraction of the soil in 0.5 M NaQH solution, whereas for the sulfonylurea herbicides, 0.5M NaOH solution would completely decompose the compounds. However, these two classes of compounds have the same determinative procedure. Some detection methods may permit fewer sample preparation steps, but in some cases the quality of the results or ruggedness of the method suffers when short cuts are attempted. For example, when MS is used, one pitfall is that one may automatically assume that all matrix effects are eliminated because of the specificity and selectivity of MS. 

SFE usually requires pre-extraction manipulation in the form of cryogenic grinding, except in cases where analytes are sorbed only on the surface or outer particle periphery. The optimum particle diameter is about 10-50 p,m. Diatomaceous earth is used extensively in SFE sample preparation procedures. This solid support helps to disperse the sample evenly, allowing the SCF to solvate the analytes of interest efficiently and without interference from moisture. 

Table 3.4 contains a comparison of microwave extraction with other sample preparation procedures. MAE compares favourably with Soxhlet/Soxtec and... 

Klink [135] recently discussed sample preparation procedures for LC-MS. SPE can be so well integrated into the concept of LC-MS, that in many automated applications no clear distinction exists between SPE and LC [135]. In on-line LC-MS mode, the possibilities for changing the eluent are rather limited, because of the tolerance of the eluent for the interface. Moreover, the conventional gradient mode may lead to strong fluctuations in the response of the MS detector. Here the off-line mode, using SPE for concentration followed by selective elution, enables very far-reaching preseparation, due to the differences in the polarity of the eluents applied and their mixtures. Although the overall benefits of SPE for LC-MS applications are positive, extracts... 

As microwave sample preparation has evolved, standard microwave procedures have been developed and approved by numerous standard methods organisations (ASTM, AOAC International, EPA, etc.), see ref. [64]. Examples are standard test methods for carbon black/ash content (ASTM Method D 1506-97), lead analysis in direct paint samples (ASTM Method E 1645-94), etc. Table 8.15 shows some microwave ashing references (detection weight). A French AFNOR method utilises the atmospheric pressure single-mode microwave method as an alternative sample preparation procedure for Kjeldahl nitrogen determination [84], The performance of a microwave-assisted decomposition for rapid determination of glass fibre content in plastics for QC has been described [85]. 

The major distribution, centred at approximately 2000 Da as expected, can be assigned as from di-hydroxyl end-capped oligomers of PPG (18). Addition of lithium salts in the MALDI sample preparation procedure leads to the generation of [18 + Li]+ ions as the major species. A series of low-intensity peaks below... 

Generally it is not possible to introduce a material, e.g. a piece of ceramic, as it is, into a mass spectrometer an appropriate sample preparation procedure, basically consisting of analytes extraction from the substrates and in their preliminary purification, precedes the mass spectrometric analysis. 

The reasons will be clearer after Section 16.4, where AMS radiocarbon sample preparation procedures will be described. Now we would simply like to recall that in preparing graphite pellets for the sputtering source, after a physical chemical cleaning, samples to be dated are usually combusted to obtain C02, which is then converted to graphite by a further step. In this process, the main problem with small samples (a few tens of micrograms) is the possible introduction of contamination. 

These samples are prepared by either wet or dry ashing. Many of the metals can be determined in aqueous solution, but for the more trace ones, solvent extraction procedures similar to those described above are resorted to. Similar sample preparation procedures apply to plants. The elements... 

Direct injection of pretreated biological samples (also called online sample cleanup) greatly simplified sample preparation for LC/MS/MS analysis. The normal process involves sample aliquot steps, internal standard addition, and centrifugation. Compared to traditional off-line LLE and SPE sample preparation procedures, online methods are easier and faster. Two types of online SPE columns are commercially available. One is the restricted access media (RAM) column. The other is the turbulent flow chromatography (TFC) column. 

Recovery — Recovery control (RC) solutions were prepared in 10/90 v/v ACN/water. Recovery evaluation (RE) samples were prepared in human plasma. Aliquot of RC solutions into assay plates followed sample preparation procedure steps 1 and 2. Instead of adding 50 pL of diluent, wells containing RC solutions were dried down under a steady stream of room temperature N2. The dried wells were then reconstituted with 250 pL of diluent. Reconstituted RC solutions were directly injected onto an HPLC analytical column, bypassing the extraction column. RE samples were aliquoted into an assay plate following normal sample preparation. RE samples were analyzed using the full extraction procedure (with extraction column). The analyte was tested at three concentration levels and the internal standard was tested at one. Mean extraction recovery for fenofibric acid varied from 93.2 to 111.1%, and mean extraction recovery for the Pestanal internal standard was 105.2%. 

For discovery PK assays, the most common sample preparation procedure is protein precipitation161720 24 because it is fast, easy to automate, and requires no method development. While protein precipitation typically will not provide as clean a sample as will alternative procedures, it is sufficient for most discovery PK samples that use HPLC/MS/MS for the analytical step.21101... 

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