Special Issue "Application of Extraction Technologies in Drugs of Abuse Determination"

Dear Colleagues,

Drug abuse has been defined as a pattern of problem use that results in health consequences, social problems, or both. Drugs of abuse comprise a wide range of different compounds with different structure and chemical properties. Various analytical techniques and different kinds of matrices have been used for the detection of these drugs, and the need for new methodologies is mandatory due to the constant introduction of new drugs into the market.

Sample preparation still represents the bottleneck in many analytical methodologies focused on the determination of drugs of abuse in biological and environmental samples. In particular, determination of the kind of analytes in complex matrices often requires the use of different sample preparation techniques prior to their instrumental analysis. One of the main aims of these strategies is to extract the analytes from the sample matrix, and in some cases, especially those dealing with analytes present at trace levels, these extraction approaches also are focused on enrichment of the compounds of interest in order to be able to determine low concentration levels, and also in the clean-up, which is of special interest in complex samples and involves the removal of possibly interfering compounds which can be present in these samples.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to invite researchers working in this field to contribute with original research papers as well as review articles addressing recent advances in the development and application of different extraction techniques to deal with the analysis of drugs of abuse in complex matrices.

Prof. Dr. Marta Calull Blanch
Prof. Dr. Carme Aguilar Anguera
Prof. Dr. Francesc Borrull Ballarí
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Sample pretreatment
• Extraction techniques
• Miniaturization
• Method validation
• Chromatography
• Electrophoresis
• Mass spectrometry