Electromembrane extraction (EME) is a novel, one-step sample preparation technique designed for the extraction of charged analytes from aqueous samples, namely for bioanalysis. EME operates by facilitating extraction across a thin liquid membrane into an aqueous acceptor solution, forced by an electrical field. EME is applicable for drugs, metabolites, peptides, heavy metal ions, from whole blood, plasma/serum, urine, tissue samples, and other types of samples such as wastewater. The extraction mechanism effectively removes analytes from protein, salts, phospholipids, and undesired endogenous compounds present in the sample, resulting in virtually no ion suppression in LC-MS and decreased down-time due to maintenance and cleaning. EME also represents very green chemistry, as only 10 µL of safe and non-volatile organic solvents is used per sample.
The first commercial equipment is launched at this year’s analytica, by Extraction Technologies Norway! This presentation will feature further introduction to electromembrane extraction, practical aspects of operation and method development, and some example applications will be discussed.
