A One-Step Pretreatment Approach: Toward Dual-Mode Detection of Flavonoids and Trace Elements in Dendrobium...

Efficient sample pretreatment is a critical step for the subsequent accurate analysis of target analytes. Herein, a novel dual-function deep eutectic solvent (DES) was synthesized for integrated extraction of flavonoids and digestion of Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo (D. officinale), to enable dual-mode detection. The one-step pretreatment (integrated extraction and digestion) was not only completed within a mere 50 s but also demonstrated superior performance: it achieved a flavonoid extraction efficiency 1.6-5.6 times that of alcoholic extraction, under milder conditions than traditional digestion methods, while yielding trace element results consistent with microwave digestion-inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Various characterization results show the successful preparation of novel DES, and its mechanism for flavonoid extraction was elucidated through density functional theory calculations. Furthermore, the method's greenness and extraction capacity were rigorously evaluated. Overall, this developed one-step DES pretreatment strategy provided a green, simple, and efficient method for the flavonoid extraction and digestion of D. officinale.