Returning to nature: use of pollen grains for solid phase extraction
If you are interested in green analytical chemistry, this is an article for you. Researchers from the Wuhan University at China have recently proposed the use of pollen grains as sorbent in hydrophilic interaction solid phase extraction (1). These grains are characterized by a high superficial area (close to 20 m2/g), a high hydrophilic surface due to the presence of residual hydroxyl groups and particle size in the medium micrometer range. The selection of the proper variety of pollen to be used for analytical purposes is a critical issue according to the authors. They prefer pine pollen to bee pollen grains since the first one is more homogeneous from the chemical point of view and therefore it leads to more reproducible results. In addition, this type of pollen is available at higher amounts allowing the fabrication of many extraction cartridges for sample extraction. Figure 1. Pollen from a variety of common plants (Public domain image from wikipedia) Pollen grains cannot...