Trends in microextraction-based sample pretreatment for food flavonoids

Flavonoids are widely distributed in plant bodies and possess multiple biological activities such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, making them crucial components in the development of food, pharmaceuticals, and health supplements. Their content in natural samples is unevenly distributed, and they are often present in complex matrices with numerous coexisting interferents. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop efficient and selective miniaturized extraction techniques to achieve precise separation, enrichment, and accurate quantification of target flavonoids. This paper systematically reviews recent applications and research progress of two core microextraction technologies-liquid-phase microextraction and solid-phase microextraction-in flavonoid analysis. It highlights innovations including green solvents in DLLME, functionalized materials in HF-LPME, and novel adsorbents like MOFs and MIPs in SPME variants. By comparing techniques' principles and performance, this paper guides method selection and outlines future trends toward green, automated, and material-driven approaches.