A recent overview of the application of emerging extraction medium-based sample preparation for the determination of aflatoxins and their precursors in food samples

Abstract

Food safety problem caused by aflatoxins (AFs) has become a major concern worldwide. However, due to the complexity of food matrices and the low concentration of analytes, the accurate and sensitive determination of AFs and their precursors in the biosynthetic pathway is extremely challenging, so the development of efficient sample preparation techniques has been urgently required. This paper reviews the recent advances in sample preparation based on some emerging extraction media for the determination of AFs and their precursors in different food samples, including ionic liquids (ILs) and IL-based composites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). These extraction media can be combined with different sample preparation techniques, such as dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction, solid-phase extraction, and magnetic/dispersive solid-phase extraction, mainly depending on their physicochemical properties. They exhibit efficient extraction and enrichment performance towards AFs and their precursors, which is attributed to their multiple-interaction mechanism and/or porous structure. This review also presents the current challenges and future prospects of these emerging extraction media for sample preparation of AFs and their precursors from food.