Ultrasound-assisted preparation of liquid samples.

This review intends to show analytical chemists a very little known application of ultrasound for sample preparation: that dealing with liquid samples. The influence of this type of energy on the development of chemical reactions (e.g. depolymerization, redox, esterification, alkylation, addition, ethylation of organometallic compounds, complex formation) and that on heterogeneous liquid-liquid processes (e.g. liquid-liquid extraction, homogenization, emulsification, liposome formation) deserves to be taken into consideration in the analytical laboratory in order to take profit from its versatile effects to improve, accelerate or make possible a given process.