New Trends in Sample Preparation Techniques for the Analysis of the Residues of Pharmaceuticals in Environmental Samples

Pharmaceutical residues in the environment is a field of special interest due to the adverse effects to either human health or aquatic and soil environment. Pharmaceuticals have been already detected in underground, surface and wastewaters, soils, manure and sediments. The growing awareness of environmental pollution arising from human activity forces the need for their comprehensive determination. Environmental samples are complex matrices to analytical chemists. The biggest problem encounters is that multiple contaminants exist in the environment at the trace levels, at the parts-perbillion (μg L-1) and parts-per-trillion (ng L-1) concentration levels. The need to obtain reliable results, for determining the content of micropollutants became the driving force behind the development of modern analytical techniques. This chapter addresses sample preparation techniques that can be applied for the analysis of pharmaceuticals in environmental samples. The main focus has been paid on: SPE, MEPS, SBSE, MSPD, FPSE, DLLME and QuECh- ERS. In addition, recent examples of applications of these techniques and examples of promising sorbents like carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, and graphite are presented. Future trends for sample preparation techniques are highlighted.