Green sample preparation of alternative biosamples in forensic toxicology

Abstract

Forensic toxicology is the scientific field that is associated with death investigations, matters involving drugs determination, sports doping etc. In forensic toxicology, reliable qualitative and quantitative toxicological analysis of a wide variety of drugs with different chemical properties (e.g., amphetamines, benzodiazepines, cannabis and opiates) is required. Alternative biosamples including hair, nails, saliva, sweat, cerebrospinal fluid and dried blood spots can be efficiently used in forensic toxicology to provide necessary or additional information. These samples exhibit certain benefits towards conventional blood and urine samples, such as ease in collection, stability, and provision of useful information for a long time period. Gas chromatography and liquid chromatography coupled with mass detectors or tandem mass detectors are the most powerful instrumentations for the determination of analytes of interest in forensic toxicology. Sample preparation is required to make the analyte compatible with these instrumentations, to remove matrix interferences and to preconcentrate them. For this purpose, solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) have been widely used. However, since the development of green analytical chemistry that emerged from green chemistry, a plethora of microextraction and miniaturized extraction techniques have been developed. In this review article we aim to discuss the green sample preparation techniques of alternative biosamples in forensic toxicology reported during the last 10 years.