The idea is to join all of us working with sample treatment in a 3-day conference, in a nice place (Caparica) during one of the most beautiful periods of the year: December.
As for the obvious question you already have in mind, what is sample treatment? the following answer is proposed: any tool that helps to interrogate any measurable matter. Thus, ultrasonic or microwave energy can be used to extract analytes from solid substances; such energy can be considered sample treatment. However, we need analytical devices, such as atomic absorption spectrometry, RMN or mass spectrometry, to interrogate the analytes. The correct application of such devices or developing new ones is also a sample treatment. But there is more to tell. Many times a large number of samples need to be interrogated. Data compiled after extracting analytes and analyzing them is nothing if we do not use chemometrics to understand all the information we have retrieved. This is also a sample treatment.
As for the obvious question you already have in mind, what is sample treatment? the following answer is proposed: any tool that helps to interrogate any measurable matter. Thus, ultrasonic or microwave energy can be used to extract analytes from solid substances; such energy can be considered sample treatment. However, we need analytical devices, such as atomic absorption spectrometry, RMN or mass spectrometry, to interrogate the analytes. The correct application of such devices or developing new ones is also a sample treatment. But there is more to tell. Many times a large number of samples need to be interrogated. Data compiled after extracting analytes and analyzing them is nothing if we do not use chemometrics to understand all the information we have retrieved. This is also a sample treatment.