Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) is an extraction and clean-up technique originally developed for recovering pesticide residues from fruits and vegetables. Since its introduction, and until December 2013, about 700 papers have been published using the QuEChERS technique, according to a literature overview carried out using SciFinder, Elsevier SciVerse, and Google search engines. Most of these papers were dedicated to pesticide multiresidue analysis in food matrices, and this topic has been thoroughly reviewed over recent years. The QuEChERS approach is now rapidly developing beyond its original field of application to analytes other than pesticides, and matrices other than food, such as biological fluids and non-edible plants, including Chinese medicinal plants. Recently, the QuEChERS concept has spread to environmental applications by analyzing not only pesticides but also other compounds of environmental concern in soil, sediments, and water. To the best of our knowledge, QuEChERS environmental applications have not been reviewed so far; therefore, in this contribution, after a general discussion on the evolution and changes of the original QuEChERS method, a critical survey of the literature regarding environmental applications of conventional and modified QuEChERS methodology is provided. The overall recoveries obtained with QuEChERS and other extraction approaches (e.g., accelerated solvent extraction, ultrasonic solvent extraction, liquid/solid extraction, and soxhlet extraction) were compared, providing evidence for QuEChERS higher recoveries for various classes of compounds, such as biopesticides, chloroalkanes, phenols, and perfluoroalkyl substances. The role of physicochemical properties of soil (i.e., clay and organic carbon content, as well as cation exchange capacity) and target analytes (i.e., log KOW, water solubility, and vapor pressure) were also evaluated in order to interpret recovery and matrix effect data.

Seven quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS)-based procedures, differing in both the extraction and clean-up steps, were investigated for the recovery of bentazone (BTZ), atrazine (ATZ), carbamazepine (CBZ), phenytoin (PNT) and its metabolite 5-(p-hydroxyphenyl-),5-phenylhydantoin (HPPH) from soil. Target analytes were chosen for their extensive use and/or occurrence in soil, as well as for their medium-high polarity characteristics (log K OW values in the range 0.88-2.80), which have been reported as a critical parameter for the recovery from soil with QuEChERS approaches. Liquid chromatography coupled with UV and pulsed amperometric (PA) detection at a glassy carbon electrode was used as instrumental technique. The recovery data obtained within each tested procedure were discussed for each compound investigated, highlighting different behaviour depending on the specific physicochemical characteristics of the analytes. The optimized QuEChERS conditions consisted of the extraction of analytes with CH3CN:H2O 70:30, 5 % CH3COOH, followed by a dispersive solid-phase extraction (d-SPE) clean-up step with C18 sorbent. This method, in which water is directly added to the soil together with acetonitrile and salts, allowed the rehydration step to be avoided, which can be as long as 30 min. Matrix effects were evaluated for both the detection techniques at different concentration levels, and they were below 24 % for both the detection technique used. The recoveries were evaluated at three concentration levels by a matrix-matched calibration and were in the ranges of 83-113 % (relative standard deviations (RSD) ≤ 14 %) and 88-109 % (RSD ≤ 11 %) for UV and PA detection, respectively, highlighting very good performances of the method, even for the more polar analytes. Method detection limits ranged from 4 μg/kg (BTZ) to 493 μg/kg (PNT) and from 4 μg/kg (HPPH) to 11 μg/kg (BTZ) for UV and PA detection, respectively. The method was finally compared with a microwave-assisted extraction procedure which provided less satisfactory extraction performances than the optimized QuEChERS procedure.

No abstract

Polymer‐derived SiC and SiOC aerogels have been synthesized and characterized both from the microstructural point of view and as sorbent materials for removing organic dyes (Methylene Blue, MB, and Rhodamine B, RB) from water solutions. Their adsorbent behavior has been compared with a polymer‐derived SiC foam and a commercial mesoporous silica. The aerogels can efficiently remove MB and RB from water solution and their capacity is higher compared to the SiC foams due to the higher surface area. The SiOC aerogel remains monolithic after the water treatment (allowing for an easy removal without the need of a filtration step) and its maximum capacity for removing MB is 42.2 mg/g, which is higher compared to the studied mesoporous silica and many C‐based porous adsorbents reported in the literature. The reason for this high adsorption capacity has been related to the unique structure of the polymer‐derived SiOC, which consists of an amorphous silicon oxycarbide network and a free carbon phase.

No abstract