Chapter 4. Functionalized Magnetic Nanoparticles in Sample Pre-treatment

The low amount of analyte and inevitable intervention of complicated matrices during instrumental analysis present an ongoing challenge for analysts in tracking proficient analysis in complex samples. Hence, suitable sample pretreatment is essential in investigations, which aim to clean up, separate and concentrate analytes of concern. It has been of great interest to develop magnetic-based adsorbent materials for the separation of materials and they can be applied in an extensive range of fields like magnetic fluids, catalysis, magnetic resonance imaging and environmental remediation since the adsorbent material does not need to be packed into any type of device. The inherent characteristics of magnetic nanoparticles along with their excellent performance have resulted in functionalized magnetic nanoparticles being very attractive in various sample preparation methods compared with other conventional sample-preparation sorbents. The benefits of magnetic nanoparticles include high sensitivity and rapid extraction which arises due to the high surface-area-to-volume ratio. Moreover, magnetic nanoparticles shorten the separation process and increase the pace of separation, enabling the extraction method to be finished a few seconds or even minutes faster. This chapter mainly describes the application of functionalized magnetic nanoparticles in the separation and analysis of analyte pre-concentration from a mixture of matrices.