Ultrasound-assisted extraction for food and environmental samples

In recent years, ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) has attracted growing interest, as it is an effective method for the rapid extraction of a number of compounds from food and environmental samples, with extraction efficiency comparable to that of classical techniques. In particular, recently, numerous analytical applications of this technique dealt with the extraction of natural compounds and pollutants from food and environmental samples. This review gives a brief presentation of the theory of UAE, discusses recent advances that influence its efficiency, and summarizes the main results in selected applications published in the period 2010-12. There is discussion of the advantages and the disadvantages of UAE and the possibility of coupling UAE with other analytical techniques. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.