Recent development and applications of dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction

Dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) is a modern sample pretreatment technique that is regarded as consilient with the current trends of modern analytical chemistry. DLLME is simple, inexpensive, environmentally friendly, and could offer high enrichment factors from a wide gap between acceptor and donor phases. As a consequence, DLLME has attracted considerable attention from researchers and, based on the numerous publications concerning DLLME, has been generally accepted in separation science since the techniqueʹs invention in 2006. However, several innate weaknesses of DLLME, which restrict the techniqueʹs use in certain fields, have led to various attempts or suggestions to improve this technique. The present review focuses on the recent advances made in DLLME; the selected papers that are discussed in this work represent modifications that fall into three main categories (exploration of new extraction solvents, disperser solvents and combination with other techniques). The recent applications of DLLME in environmental, food and biological samples are also summarised, covering almost all of the publications related to the technology from the beginning. In addition, the feasibility of future trends of DLLME is discussed.