shorten the period of time needed in preparation procedures. For instance, in electrophoretic separation, less sample injection provides rapid baseline separation.(3,4) Unfortunately, the most commonly used sample preparation devices either cannot handle sample in vary small amounts or suffer from the damage on assay sensitivity and accuracy. This shortcoming is addressed by device miniaturization techniques very well, including microextraction and microfluidics. Fourthly, employing appropriate integration strategies is another useful approach. To simultaneously accomplish preparation procedures for a batch of samples, high-throughput assays could reduce the average preparation period for each sample. In other cases, several preparation procedures were realized in a single step or automatically. In this review, a comprehensive survey on progress in fast sample preparation in the last 2 years has been composed from more than 180 references, and we highlight the most useful acceleration approaches for sample preparation: they are energy exchange, materials, size reduction, and integration.

Xiao, W., Xu, Y., Haghipour, N., Montluçon, D.B., Pan, B., Jia, Z., Ge, H., Yao, P., Eglinton, T.I., 2020. Efficient sequestration of terrigenous organic carbon in the New Britain Trench. Chemical Geology 533, 119446.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254119305753 The fate of terrigenous organic carbon (OC ) in the ocean remains an enigma for four decades. Hadal trenches, terr the deepest ocean realm (6 - 11 km deep), were recently proposed to be OC depocenters, but whether and how much OC was sequestrated there remain elusive. Here we conducted comprehensive analyses for four terr sediment cores from the New Britain Trench (NBT) close to Papua New Guinea to assess source, translocation and burial of OC. The bulk and molecular radiocarbon data suggest that the NBT landward slope and axis sediments mainly receive young and biogenic rather than petrogenic OC. The three-endmember mixing model 14 13 based on Δ C, δ C and OC contents reveals that sediments of the NBT axis (8225 m) comprise relatively high OC contents (0.66 ± 0.08%), of which biogenic OC accounts for 62 ± 10%. The high proportion of biogenic terr OC was attributed to the selective translocation of OC -enriched coarse particles and rapid delivery of terr terr sediments supported by unique V-shape feature of the trench. In contrast, the sediment OC at the oceanward slope is primarily of a marine origin, suggesting that OC was efficiently trapped in the trench bottom. It is terr - 2 - 1 - 2 - 1 estimated that the burial rate is 2.75 ± 0.32 g C m yr for OC and 1.69 ± 0.41 g C m yr for OC in the terr NBT. Given a fact that many trenches are close to the landmasses, we propose that the hadal trenches may contribute significantly to the burial of OC in the ocean. terr

Xie, S.-M., Chen, X.-X., Zhang, J.-H., Yuan, L.-M., 2020. Gas chromatographic separation of enantiomers on novel chiral stationary phases. TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 124, 115808.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165993619304364 Chiral capillary gas chromatography has been widely applied to separate volatile and thermally stable enantiomers due to its advantages of simplicity, high efficiency, fast analysis, good sensitivity, and absence of liquid mobile phases. In the first part of this article, recent research progress (from 2010 to the present) concerning newly developed chiral stationary phases based on cyclofructan derivatives and chiral porous materials, including metal-organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, inorganic mesoporous silicas, and molecular cages for use in gas chromatography, and the synthetic strategies for obtaining chiral porous materials, was reviewed. Finally, we discussed in detail the separation performances and chiral recognition mechanisms of novel chiral recognition materials coated on capillary columns towards various types of enantiomers, namely (1) amino acid derivatives; (2) alcohols, amines, and amino alcohols; (3) organic acids; (4) aldehydes and ketones; (5) ethers and epoxides, and (6) esters and other enantiomers.

Xu, H., 2020. Probing nanopore structure and confined fluid behavior in shale matrix: A review on small-angle neutron scattering studies. International Journal of Coal Geology 217, 103325.

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