FAST, EASY EFFICIENT SAMPLE PREPARATION

Importance of the Topic

Sample preparation is the most time-consuming and error-prone stage of an analytical workflow, often accounting for up to 60% of total analysis time.
Inadequate cleanup or concentration can compromise data quality, reduce instrument uptime, and drive up operational costs.
Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) offers a flexible, cost-effective approach to efficiently purify and concentrate samples prior to HPLC, GC, LC/MS, or GC/MS analysis, reducing re-runs and boosting laboratory productivity.

Objectives and Study Overview

This reference compendium presents PerkinElmer’s Supra-Clean (silica-based) and Supra-Poly (polymer-based) SPE products, designed with Precise Bed Technology™ for outstanding reproducibility.
It provides guidelines for selecting the optimal sorbent chemistry, column format, and procedure parameters across environmental, forensic, and pharmaceutical applications.
Examples cover analyte classes such as phenols, herbicides, drugs of abuse, steroids, antidepressants, and immunosuppressants in various matrices including water, blood, serum, urine, and tissue.

Methodology and Instrumentation

SPE workflows are organized into six key steps: sample pretreatment, column conditioning, sample loading, washing, optional drying, and analyte elution.
Sorbent activation and analyte retention and release are optimized by choosing appropriate solvents, pH adjustments, and flow control via vacuum or pressure manifolds.
PerkinElmer recommends specific sorbent-analyte matches—reversed phase, normal phase, ion-exchange, or mixed-mode—guided by analyte polarity, charge, and matrix.

• Vacuum Manifolds for 12 or 24 positions
• Vacuum Pumps (20 and 58 L/min versions)
• HPLC columns (Brownlee Validated C18, PFP, Aqueous C18, C8)
• GC/MS columns (Elite-5 MS, Elite-35 MS)
• Derivatization reagents (BSTFA, PFPA, PFPOH, MTBSTFA)

Main Results and Discussion

Precise Bed Technology with mono-dispersed spherical particles yields ±1% bed volume precision, outperforming irregular media in competing solutions.
Uniform filling prevents channeling, reduces pressure variation, and allows smaller sample volumes without sacrificing recovery.
Application protocols demonstrate recoveries typically above 90% for model compounds across water, biological fluids, and complex matrices.
Column capacities from 50 mg to 2 g and formats from cartridges to 96-well plates facilitate scalable throughput from single trace assays to high-throughput screening.

Benefits and Practical Applications

PerkinElmer SPE solutions deliver:

• Robust reproducibility column-to-column and lot-to-lot
• Reduced solvent usage and faster cycle times
• High analyte concentration factors and improved detection limits
• Broad chemical coverage with 20+ sorbent chemistries
• Compatibility with routine HPLC, GC, GC/MS, and LC/MS platforms

They support diverse tasks such as environmental monitoring of pesticides and phenols, forensic toxicology screens for drugs and metabolites, and pharmaceutical quality control of APIs in biological samples.

Future Trends and Applications

Ongoing developments include greener solvent protocols, automated SPE systems, and novel mixed-mode polymers to handle ultra-polar or high-molecular-weight analytes.
Integration with online SPE and direct coupling to LC/MS will shorten time-to-result and reduce manual handling.
Expansion of 96-well SPE plate formats and robotic compatibility will address growing demands in clinical, food safety, and bioanalytical labs.

Conclusion

PerkinElmer’s Supra-Clean and Supra-Poly SPE product lines, combined with application-driven kits and precise bed technology, enable reproducible, high-yield sample preparation across a wide range of matrices and analytes.
These solutions streamline workflows, lower costs, and support reliable data generation for environmental, forensic, and pharmaceutical analyses.

Reference

• PerkinElmer. Supra-Clean and Supra-Poly Solid Phase Extraction (SPE): A Reference Notebook of SPE Applications.