Since its first introduction by Karlsson and Novotny in 1988 nano-LC has emerged as a complementary and/or competitive separation method to conventional HPLC, offering several advantages such as higher efficiency, ability to work with minute sample sizes and lower consumption of mobile phases, and better compatibility with MS, etc. Although its use was not so extended initially, in the last years new and interesting applications have appeared which deserve to be carefully considered. The aim of this review is therefore to provide an updated and critical survey of different nano-LC applications in analytical chemistry.

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In this work, the simultaneous separation of a group of 12 pesticides (carbaryl, fensulfothion, mecoprop, fenamiphos, haloxyfop, diclofop, fipronil, profenofos, fonofos, disulfoton, nitrofen, and terbufos) by nano-liquid chromatography with UV detection is described. For the analyses, a 100 μm internal diameter capillary column packed with silica modified with phenyl groups was used. Experimental parameters, including the use of a trapping column for increasing the sensitivity, were optimized and validated. A preliminary study of the applicability of a rapid and practical dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) procedure was developed for the extraction of some of these pesticides (carbaryl, fensulfothion, fenamiphos, fipronil, profenofos, fonofos, disulfoton, nitrofen, and terbufos) from Milli-Q water samples using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The method was validated through a recovery study at three different levels of concentration, obtaining limits of detection in the range 0.016-0.067 μg/L (below European Union maximum residue limits) for the majority of the pesticides. In this work, MWCNTs were reused up to five times, representing an important reduction of the waste of stationary phase. Furthermore, DSPE permitted a clear diminution of the total sample treatment time with respect to conventional SPE.

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