5-(Pyrrolidin-2-yl)tetrazole functionalized silica prepared by photoinduced thiol–ene coupling is packed into a short stainless steel column. The resulting packed-bed microreactor is conveniently heated to perform environmentally benign continuous-flow aldol reactions with good stereoselectivities, complete conversion efficiencies, and long term stability of the packing material.

Until less than 10 years ago, chiral separations were carried out with columns packed with 5 or 3 $\mathsf{\mu }$ m fully porous particles (FPPs). Times to resolve enantiomeric mixtures were easily larger than 30 min, or so. Pushed especially by stringent requirements from medicinal and pharmaceutical industries, during the last years the field of chiral separations by liquid chromatography has undergone what can be defined a “true revolution”. With the purpose of developing ever faster and efficient method of separations, indeed, very efficient particle formats, such as superficially porous particles (SPPs) or

The present work focused on the use of high-silica commercial zeolites as sorbent media for pharmaceuticals in an aqueous matrix. As drug probes, ketoprofen, hydrochlorothiazide, and atenolol were selected, because of their occurrence in surface waters and effluents from wastewater treatment plants. Pharmaceuticals adsorption was evaluated for two Faujasite topology zeolites with Silica/Alumina Ratio 30 and 200. The selected zeolites were demonstrated to be efficient sorbents towards all investigated pharmaceuticals, thanks to their high saturation capacities (from 12 to 32% w/w) and binding constants. These results were corroborated by thermal and structural analyses, which revealed that adsorption occurred inside zeolite’s porosities, causing lattice modifications. Finally, zeolites have been tested as a pre-concentration media in the dispersive-solid phase extraction procedure. Recoveries higher than 95% were gained for ketoprofen and hydrochlorothiazide and approximately 85% for atenolol, at conditions that promoted the dissolution of the neutral solute into a phase mainly organic. The results were obtained by using a short contact time (5 min) and reduced volume of extraction (500 µL), without halogenated solvents. These appealing features make the proposed procedure a cost and time saving method for sample enrichment as well as for the regeneration of exhausted sorbent, rather than the more energetically expensive thermal treatment.