Posted by Food analysis is critical for ensuring human health and safety, as it involves the detection of contaminants such as pesticides, heavy metals, mycotoxins, allergens, and microbial contaminants. Effective extraction and pre-concentration of these analytes are crucial to achieve accurate analysis and comply with regulatory standards. However, food matrices are complex, including solid, semi-solid, and liquid components, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and other organic and inorganic compounds. Therefore, isolation of target analytes is a challenging task. Exploring new and improved sorbent materials is one of the advanced strategies for developing selective and greener sample preparation approaches. Cyclodextrins (CDs) play a significant role in this topic. The functionalization of CDs’ external hydroxyl groups allows for modifications in solubility, cavity opening, and bonding with other sorbent materials. This review discusses the current status of CDs as a robust sorbent material in food- and nutraceutical analysis [1]. It covers the principles of CD-based sorbent preparation. It explores combining them with other materials, creating customized sorbents for solid-phase extraction techniques, including dispersive, packed devices-based, and coated devices-based methods.
Silica is widely employed as a material for functionalizing CDs due to its controlled composition, morphology, and porosity. CD-silica materials can be categorized into two main classes: cyclodextrin-functionalized silicas prepared through grafting or coating reactions and cyclodextrin-silica hybrid systems prepared through sol-gel or self-assembly methods [2]. The first approach yields grafted matrices (Fig. 1a) and coated materials (Fig. 1b). These materials offer improved access to binding sites and enhanced thermal, mechanical, and chemical stability. However, they may suffer from uneven distribution of cyclodextrin molecules and low cyclodextrin loading, which can limit their adsorption capacities. In the second approach, nanoporous frameworks are obtained (Fig. 1c). These hybrid systems exhibit high cyclodextrin group loadings and robust structures, improving their adsorption capacity.
[1] Edvaldo Vasconcelos Soares Maciel, Natalia Gabrielly Pereira dos Santos, Deyber Arley Vargas Medina, Fernando Mauro Lanças (2023) Cyclodextrins-based sorbents for sustainable sample preparation focusing on food analysis. Green Analytical Chemistry 7, 100077. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.greeac.2023.100077.
[2] N. Morin-Crini, M. Fourmentin, S. Fourmentin, G. Torri, G. Crini (2019) Synthesis of silica materials containing cyclodextrin and their applications in wastewater treatment. Environ. Chem. Lett. 17, 683-696, 10.1007/s10311-018-00818-0