[Research progress of electrically-driven force based online rapid separation and enrichment techniques]

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Separation Science

Context:

• Sample preparation is crucial for accurate analysis but is often time-consuming and labor-intensive.
• Traditional methods involve entropy reduction, which is thermodynamically unfavorable and slow.
• Accelerating sample preparation enhances analytical method sensitivity, selectivity, and accuracy.

Purpose:

• To review advancements in electrically-driven force based online rapid separation and enrichment techniques over the last decade.
• To categorize these techniques into capillary, microchip, and membrane extraction methods.
• To highlight the strategies employed for accelerating sample preparation using electric fields.

Summary:

• Electrically-driven force techniques utilize electric fields to introduce energy and direct analyte migration, overcoming thermodynamic limitations in sample preparation.
• Four key acceleration strategies include: field-induced energy transfer, electrically-driven flows, online integration, and device miniaturization.
• The review classifies techniques into capillary, microchip, and membrane extraction, with capillary methods dominating recent research.

Impact:

• These techniques significantly reduce sample preparation time and labor, enabling faster and more efficient analytical processes.
• Device miniaturization and online integration enhance automation and reduce errors in complex sample analysis.
• Electrically-driven separation and enrichment show great potential in fields like food safety, environmental monitoring, and clinical diagnostics.