Analysis of contaminants of environment and foods by capillary electromigration techniques

Numerous emerging contaminants with unknown or poorly understood toxicological profiles have been released into ecosystems. Some of them possess elements of chirality, making their stereoselective determination a relevant issue. Capillary electromigration techniques offer several advantages, including minimum consumption of samples and reagents, high separation efficiency, rapid analysis, and low operational costs, aligning well with the principles of Green Analytical Chemistry. Its remarkable versatility enables the analysis of a wide variety of compounds across diverse matrices. This review summarises and discusses the articles published between 2020 and 2025 dealing with the achiral and chiral determination of pesticides, pharmaceuticals or mycotoxins in environmental and food matrices with emphasis on the detection systems employed, the sensitivity reached, and the innovative sample pretreatment strategies developed. Considering the distinct activity, degradation pathways, and metabolism of enantiomers, this review also presents the evaluation of the stability and toxicity of chiral emerging contaminants at an enantiomeric level. • Achiral/chiral analysis of contaminants by Capillary Electromigration techniques. • Recent advances and developments in the period 2020–2025 discussed. • Applications to the analysis of environmental and food samples. • Stability and ecotoxicity evaluation of contaminants at enantiomeric level.