Surfactant roles in modern sample preparation techniques: a review

The pressure to decrease organic solvent usage in laboratories is increasing. Thus miniaturization and improvement of sample handling using alternatives is a challenge that has been discussed by several researchers. From this perspective, surfactant-based sample preparations were an educated choice. Since the introduction of cloud point extraction by Watanabe, considerable studies have been focused on the chemical properties of surfactants in the extraction methods. The unique properties of surfactants make them flexible agents for different miniaturized sample preparation techniques based on solid- or liquid-phase extraction. As a result, the use of surfactants with different roles in sample-preparation methodologies (such as surfactant as an emulsifier, surfactant rich phase as an extraction medium, ion pair-based extraction, hemimicelle/admicelle extraction, surfactant-coated magnetic nanoparticle, solid-phase microextraction with micellar desorption) is an important contribution to minimizing the problems arising from preliminary operations, which are the weakest step in analytical measurement. This paper reviews the literature dealing with the application of surfactant-based sample preparations to the separation and the preconcentration of organic and inorganic species.