Stir-bar sorptive extraction

Abstract Stir-bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) is a solventless extraction technique, which combines extraction and preconcentration onto an acceptor phase, mainly polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), of volatile and semivolatile compounds. Compared to solid phase microextraction (SPME), the main difference lies in the amount of acceptor phase, which roughly goes from 0.5 μL for SPME to 25 μL for SBSE and increases the extraction efficiency of the latter. The extraction can be performed either in the immersion (SBSE) or the headspace (HSSE) modes, and thermal and liquid desorption (TD and LD, respectively) are both possible for the desorption step. Though SBSE was originally applied to the determination of nonpolar compounds, the application field has widened to more polar or even ionic compounds with the development of new coatings or the use of derivatization. Combined with gas and liquid chromatography, SBSE has been successfully applied to determine a large variety of organic and organometallic compounds in environmental, food, and biomedical samples, in addition to passive sampling.