“…In order to monitor the amount of heavy metal ions and pesticides accumulated in nature, a wide range of sample types, such as soil, water, air, food, beverage, plant and animal-derived products, needs to be tested routinely. The most widely used analytical methods to detect the presence of contaminants in real samples are: atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) [ 6 , 7 ], atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) [ 8 , 9 ], mass spectroscopy (MS) [ 10 , 11 ] and chromatography methods [ 12 , 13 ]. All of them have excellent sensitivity and reproducibility, however, their protocols for sample preparation are time-consuming [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] and they require very expensive and sophisticated apparatuses, handled by well-trained personnel.…”