Life cycle assessment of sample preparation in analytical chemistry: a case study on SBSE and SPE techniques

In the past twenty years, green analytical chemistry has gained more and more attention. However, the environmental impacts of analytical methods have never been quantified. The purpose of this work is to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to the preparation of one sample using SBSE and SPE techniques and to show that LCA is a suitable framework to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts of a sample preparation. The amounts of consumables, chemicals and energy needed to prepare a sample with both techniques were determined with the literature and lab measurements. We converted this data into environmental impacts through the use of a life cycle inventory database (ecoinvent 3.7.1) and a life cycle impact assessment method (ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint). The results of the LCA (baseline scenario) showed that the SBSE induces less overall environmental impacts than the SPE because it uses less chemicals to prepare one sample. The impacts of both techniques could be reduced by reusing the vial and vial caps which are the largest contributors. The spatial location of the laboratory (and its associated electricity mix) also plays a significant role for the SBSE process as it uses more electricity than the SPE process. This study paves the way for the application and standardization of LCA to whole chemical analysis, composed of the sample collection, preparation, analysis and the data analysis.