Headspace solid-phase microextraction: Fundamentals and recent advances

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) has become a powerful sample preparation technique which allows to efficiently isolate and enrich analytes from complex matrixes. One of the most widespread SPME modes, consists of the extraction directly from the headspace (HS) which is equilibrated with the sample. In this sense, HS-SPME provides one of the best platforms for sample preparation, especially for the analysis of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds. Furthermore, this technique has demonstrated to be versatile, sensitive, robust, and environmentally friendly when applied to samples coming from a diverse variety of fields such as bioanalysis, environmental sciences, food and cultural heritage. Moreover, during last years, the implementation of HS-SPME has dramatically grown along with the need to monitor complex systems over time using in situ and in vivo approaches, taking advantage of its noninvasive nature. In this review article, the authors present the fundamentals of this technique aiming to critically understand its advantages and limitations, highlighting the recent advances published in the last ten years. To this aim, special sections dealing with extractive phase development, technological advances and relevant applications in different fields have been carefully designed. Finally, some thoughts and perspectives about the future of the technique are also discussed.