Atomic spectrometry update: review of advances in the analysis of clinical and biological materials, foods and beverages

Abstract

This update covers publications from the second half of 2022 to the middle of 2023. Advances in analytical techniques and their applications relevant to clinical and biological materials, foods and beverages are reviewed in the text, highlighting their key-features. Four tables complement the text, aiming to summarise technical details of interest for sample preparation based on extraction procedures, applications to clinical and biological materials, analysis of food and beverages and studies of food authenticity or origin. Techniques with multielement capabilities are more and more popular as they allow maximisation of the information that can be obtained from a single sample and the results are often analysed by sophisticated statistical techniques. However, the interest in single-element methods has not decreased and it is supported by the development of smart extraction and pre-concentration methods that make the most of nanomaterials. Beside more conventional applications of ICP-MS, most of the developments in the biological field are devoted to exploring the capabilities for single cell and single particle measurements. Much work is in progress, but standardization of these procedures will require more time and effort. A number of papers also reported the use of ICP-MS as a detector to support measurement of biological macromolecules. The use of LIBS, MS and X-ray for imaging, alongside other techniques, continues to attract attention, in particular for applications in support of cancer diagnosis and bioanalytical research. Applications to food and beverage samples have focused both on achieving lower limits of detection and on multiple measurement capabilities, in particular, following the interest in documenting the authenticity and origin of food products, several reviews have addressed specific aspects of the process of measuring chemical elements in biological matrices, food and beverages. Attention was also given to various techniques for micro-sampling biological fluids that would facilitate monitoring programmes with less invasive procedures. The issuing of regulations for the control of chemical elements as impurities in medicines has driven commitment to develop or improve suitable analytical methods.