Multielemental speciation of As, Se, Sb and Te by HPLC-ICP-MS

An anion exchange HPLC-ICP-MS procedure allowing the simultaneous multielemental speciation analysis of arsenic, selenium, antimony and tellurium has been developed. Four arsenic species (As-III, As-V, monomethylarsonic acid and dimethylarsinic acid), two selenium species (Se-IV and Se-VI) may be determined in a single run as well as one antimony (Sb-V) and one tellurium species (Te-VI). Alternatively Sb and/or Te may be used as internal standards for As and Se speciation studies. Optimisation of ICP-MS conditions led to satisfactory relative (0.01 (Sb-V) to 1.8 (Se-VI) ng ml(-1)) and absolute detection limits (1-180 pg). Reproducibility ranged from 3.1 to 5.6% and the linearity was verified in the 0-200 ng ml(-1) range. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.