Electromembrane Extraction from Biological Fluids

Electro-assisted extraction of ionic drugs from biological fluids through a supported liquid membrane (SLM) and into an aqueous acceptor solution was recently introduced as a new sample preparation technique termed electromembrane extraction (EME). The applied electrical potential across the SLM has typically been in the range of 1 - 300 V. Successful extractions have been demonstrated even with common batteries (9 V) instead of a power supply. The chemical composition of the SLM has been crucial for the selectivity and for the recoveries of the extraction. Compared to other liquid-phase microextraction techniques (LPME), extraction times have been reduced by a factor of 6 - 17, and successful extractions have been obtained at extraction times of 1 - 5 min, and even down to a few seconds with online microfluidic EME devices. The technique has provided very efficient sample clean-up and has been found well suited for the extraction of sample sizes in the low µL range. Extractions have been performed with both rod-shaped hydrophobic porous fibers and with flat hydrophobic porous sheets as SLM support. The technique has been successfully downscaled into the micro-chip format. The nature of the SLM has been tuned for extraction of drugs with different polarity allowing extractions to be tailored for specific applications depending on the analyte of interest. The technique has been found to be compatible with a wide range of biological fluids and extraction of drugs directly from untreated human plasma and whole blood has been demonstrated. EME selectively extracts the compounds from the complex biological sample matrix as well as allowing concentration of the drugs. With home-built equipment fully acceptable validation results have been obtained.