The monitoring of trace substances in waters and soils, which are introduced into the environment by humans via wastewater treatment plants, agriculture or emission, is of great importance for the understanding of their environmental behavior and their ecotoxicological relevance. Particularly polar and ionic/ionizable substances pose great challenges for analytical methods.

One approach for the extraction and enrichment of a large number of analytes is liquid-liquid extraction. The QuEChERS method, which is based on the principle of salting out, has become particularly well established here. The main disadvantage of this method is the high salt load, which can lead to problems in the further analysis of the samples. I am therefore working on an extraction method that does not require salts. Sugars, low temperatures and additional solvents create a miscibility gap. The extraction of charged substances can also be supported by applying an electric field. The analyses are performed with LC- or CE-MS.