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.