An Investigation on Inorganic Arsenic in Seaweed by Ion Chromatography Combined with Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry

This study focused on the matrix interference for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of inorganic arsenic species in seaweed by ion chromatography (IC) combined with inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The matrix of seaweed has a significant effect on the determination of inorganic arsenic species. In particular, the retention times of inorganic arsenic species in the in the standard solution were different from those in seaweed because of the matrix interference. Thus, it was not suitable to use the chromatographic method for the determination of the arsenic species in seaweed. We investigated an alternative method for the determination of inorganic arsenic species in seaweed. The method was applied for the seaweed samples such as laver, green laver, sea tangle and sea mustard. The sample extraction methods of the arsenic species were also investigated in this study.