Current development and applications of ordered mesoporous silicas and other sol-gel silica-based materials in food sample preparation for xenobiotics analysis

In the last years, sample preparation has been playing an important role in the analysis of xenobiotics in complex matrices, such as food samples. Recent advances in the development of new materials, such as ordered mesoporous silicas (OMSs) and other sol-gel silica-based materials, have gained increasing research interest in sample preparation and analytical chemistry due to their desirable characteristics and advantages versus traditional and commercial sorbents, since they enhance the analytical performance of many existing techniques or allow new ones to be developed. The aim of this review is to provide an overview with the most relevant achievements in the preparation and functionalization of OMSs and other sol-gel organic-inorganic hybrid silicas, and to give some recent examples from the last six years (from 2010 to 2016) regarding the analytical applications of these materials in sample preparation and extraction of xenobiotics from food products, including beverages and drinking water samples.