A New Microchip Design. A Versatile Combination of Electromembrane Extraction and Liquid-Phase Microextraction in a Single Chip Device.

Abstract

For the first time, a novel and versatile microfluidic device was developed to achieve the possibility of combining different extraction principles using a miniaturized approach for the extraction of different classes of analytes. This novel microchip is composed of a sandwich of three poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) layers. Four channels allowed the combination of electromembrane extraction (EME) and liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) in three different ways: (I) EME and LPME, (II) EME and EME, or (III) LPME and LPME. The microchip can be used either (a) using a common acceptor phase (for both extractions) for the simultaneous extraction of drugs from different nature in a single step, or (b) a common sample solution (for both extractions) and two acceptor solutions for simultaneous drug separation. In this work, the performance of this novel microchip was demonstrated by simultaneous integration of EME and LPME using a common acceptor phase for both extractions. This configuration reduces the time of analysis allowing direct analysis in a single chip. The microchip was tested for extracting two different classes of analytes: five fluoroquinolones and four parabens as model analytes. All effective variables were optimized for EME and LPME. Under the optimized conditions, the reusable microchip enables simultaneous μ-EME/LPME with extraction efficiencies over 77% in only 8 min extraction and sample volume consumption lower than 40 μL. The optimized procedure was successfully applied to urine samples obtaining recoveries over 90% for all analytes.