With the development and application of engineered nanoparticles（ENPs），ENPs have entered our daily life in various fields.A continually growing number of consumer products contain this nanomaterial with varying particles sizes and elemental compositions，which have been discharged increasingly into the environment becoming nano waste.For some time，concerns have been raised related to the potential toxicity of ENPs to human health for their special physicochemical property.As a result,analytical methods are urgently needed for the reliable determination of ENPs.Due to the small size，high surface to volume ratio and other properties，the states of ENPs are easily charged in certain environments，especially in impure，multi-component，heterogeneous and complex samples，which could not be directly used for instrumental analysis.For most of the analytical techniques，dilution of ENP samples is needed for minimum sample preparation.The stability of charge stabilized ENPs is especially sensitive to changes of pH value or ionic strength，and sometimes even to dilution.Thus，ENPs analysis in real sample could be challenging.This article reviews the general characterization and the use of ENPs，sample pretreatment methods and analytical techniques commonly used for their determination.The main aspect of this review covers the preparation procedures of liquid and powder samples，respectively.Moreover，various applications by direct determination or analysis after suitable digestion as well as novel approaches such as single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry（spICPMS） technique，and hyphenated techniques such as field flow fractionation（FFF） are discussed in detail.Finally，the future trends and developments in this research area are prospected．