**About the Editors**

**Victoria Samanidou** was born on 11 January, 1963, in Thessaloniki, Greece. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1985 from the Chemistry Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

In 1990, she obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The topic of her thesis was "Distribution and mobilization of heavy metals in waters and sediments from rivers in Northern Greece". In the same year, Dr. Samanidou joined the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry, in the Department of Chemistry of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as a Technical Assistant. Nine years later, she was elected as Lecturer in the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 2007, she joined the Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry in Graz Technical University, for four months, developing methods by LC-MS/MS. Since 2015, Dr. Samanidou has been Full Professor in the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, where she currently serves as Director of the Laboratory.

Dr. Samanidou has authored and co-authored more than 170 original research articles in peer-reviewed journals and 45 reviews and 50 chapters in scientific books, with an H-index 36 (Scopus June 2020, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8493-1106, Scopus Author ID 7003896015) and circa 3500 citations. She has supervised four PhD Theses, 24 postgraduate Diploma Theses, 2 postdoc researchers, and more than 15 undergraduate Diploma Theses. She has served as Member of 10 advisory PhD committees, 21 examination PhD committees, and 32 examination committees of postgraduate Diploma Theses. She is a member of the editorial board of more than 10 scientific journals, and she has reviewed circa 500 manuscripts in more than 100 scientific journals. She was also gues<sup>t</sup> editor in more than 10 special issues in scientific journals. She has served as Academic Editor for Separations MDPI, as Regional editor in *Current Analytical Chemistry*, and as Editor in Chief of *Pharmaceutica Analytica Acta*.

Her research interests include: 1. Development and validation of analytical methods for the determination of inorganic and organic substances using chromatographic techniques; 2. development and optimization of methodology for sample preparation of various samples, e.g., food, biological fluids; 3. study of new chromatographic materials used in separation and sample preparation (polymeric sorbents, monoliths, carbon nanotubes, fused core particles, etc.) compared to conventional materials.

She has also been Member of the organizing and scientific committee in 20 scientific conferences. In December 2015, Dr. Samanidou was elected as President of the Steering Committee of the Division of Central and Western Macedonia of the Greek Chemists' Association. In November 2018, she was reelected to serve at the same leading position for 3 more years. A milestone in her career was in 2016, when she was included in the top 50 power list of women in Analytical Science, as proposed by Texere Publishers. https://theanalyticalscientist.com/power-list/the-power-list-2016.

**Rafael Lucena** has been a professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Cordoba since ´ 2010 and the secretary of the Research Institute of Fine Chemistry and Nanochemistry at the same university. To date, Rafael has co-authored 109 scientific articles (h-index: 34, Scopus ID: 8517312100Scopus) dealing with different analytical chemistry facets, although sample preparation is the central core of his research. His research is mainly focused on the development of new extraction approaches and the design of novel materials for analytes isolation. Since 2017, he has worked on the design of a new paper-based sorptive phase with application in analytical chemistry and catalysis. He is also interested in the integration of microextraction techniques with sampling and instrumental analysis (spectroscopic and mass spectrometry techniques).

Rafael has reviewed more than 500 articles in many scientific journals and has evaluated research projects for different agencies such as Fondecyt (Chile), Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (Espa ´ na) ˜ and the Czech Science Foundation.

He is a member of different societies, such as the American Chemical Society, American Society for Mass Spectrometry and Sociedad Espanola de Qu ˜ ´ımica Anal´ıtica. He is also a member of the Spanish Network for Sample Preparation and the EuChemS-DAC Sample Preparation Task Force and Network.

### **Preface to "Five Years of Separations"**

This Special Issue is dedicated to the celebration of five years of the Separations Journal and aims to collect original research papers from the frontiers of separation research, as well as review articles from prominent scholars, highlighting the state-of-the-art of separation science and technology. Researchers and technologists, whose work focuses on separations and related applications, were invited to contribute with papers disseminating their excellent research findings. The issue shows the multidisciplinary approach of separation techniques, and it is a forum to share innovative ideas in the field.

One review and nine original research articles are included. The Guest Editors wish to thank all authors for their fine contributions.

*Separations* **has already received its first Impact Factor,** which is **1.9, proving that it is one of the most promising journals in the field of chromatographic techniques and separation science.**

> **Victoria Samanidou, Rafael Lucena** *Editors*

*Review*

### **Applications of Gas Chromatography for the Analysis of Tricyclic Antidepressants in Biological Matrices**

#### **Natalia Manousi and Victoria F. Samanidou \***

Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; nmanousi@chem.auth.gr

**\*** Correspondence: samanidou@chem.auth.gr; Tel.: +30-2310-997-698

Received: 30 January 2019; Accepted: 24 April 2019; Published: 29 April 2019

**Abstract:** Tricyclic antidepressant drugs (TCAs) are a main category of antidepressants, which are until today widely used for the treatment of psychological disorders due to their low cost and their high efficiency. Therefore, there is a grea<sup>t</sup> demand for method development for the determination of TCAs in biofluids, especially for therapeutic drug monitoring. Gas chromatography (GC) was the first chromatographic technique implemented for this purpose. With the recent development in the field of sample preparation, many novel GC applications have been developed. Herein, we aim to report the recent application of GC for the determination of tricyclic antidepressants in biofluids. Emphasis is given to novel extraction techniques and novel materials used for sample preparation.

**Keywords:** gas chromatography; tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs); sample treatment; biological fluids
