Trends in solid-phase microextraction for determining organic pollutants in environmental samples

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a recent technique for sample preparation, It has been used successfully to analyze environmental pollutants in a variety of matrices such as soils, water, and air. SPME is a solvent-free technique which has a number of advantages over more conventional sample preparation techniques such as liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase extraction (SPE), We describe the most recent developments in SPME and some which are being developed, including its coupling to HPLC and CE, the use of new fibers, and the automation of the entire SPME process and its application to field analysis. A summary is given of the most important parameters for applying this extraction technique to the analysis of environmental samples. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B,V, All rights reserved.