Recent innovations in cloud point extraction towards a more efficient and environmentally friendly procedure

Abstract

The cloud point extraction method (CPE) has gotten a lot of attention since it was first discovered, and a lot of research and reviews have been published in this field because of its green features as an excellent speciation tool even at ultra-trace scales of the analytes. CPE has a broad range of capabilities to extract and separate organics and metals. The researchers offered many modifications that make it more environmentally friendly, cheap, and accurate. Many issues were raised to explain traditional CPE, but no review was provided that analyzed and evaluated recent innovations in CPE methods. The current work aims to eliminate the identified shortcoming. This review examines the principles, advantages, disadvantages, and applications of innovative CPE approaches that are less well-known within the given time range (2018–2023). They are easy to use, effective, and non-toxic, as well as comparable to or even occasionally better than traditional CPE procedures. These procedures include room-temperature CPE, mixed-micellar media CPE, rapidly synergistic CPE (RS-CPE), inverse cloud-point extraction (ICPE), dual-CPE (d-CPE), novel surfactants in CPE, and others. Also, some terminological remarks and future trends were added.