Recent advances of ionic liquids in sample preparation

This paper reviews the recent advances of ionic liquids (ILs) in sample preparation from more than 100 works mainly in last five years, including liquid-liquid microextraction, solid-phase extraction, solid-phase microextraction, stir bar or stir cake sorptive extraction. ILs, polymer of ILs and their composites with molecular imprinted polymer, carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide and magnetic materials have been explored as promising sorbents for inorganic or organic pollutants, majorly relying on the affinity of ILs with the target. The improved sensitivity and selectivity towards different types of analytes were displayed, attributed from various mechanism of ILs-based extraction materials including pi-pi, ion-exchange, hydrogen bond, dipole-dipole, electrostatic, hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions. The prospects of ILs for sample preparation were also presented, which can offer an outlook for the further applications of ILs. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.