DETERMINATION OF ARSENIC SPECIES IN MARINE ORGANISMS BY HPLC-ICP-OES AND HPLC-HG-QFAAS

Separation and quantification of six arsenic species have been perform ed in cod, tuna and mussel samples by high performance liquid chromato graphy (HPLC) using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectr ometry (ICP-OES) and hydride generation-quartz furnace atomic absorpti on spectrometry (HG-QFAAS) as detection techniques. It has been shown that arsenic extraction with a water-methanol (1:1) mixture is suffici ently quantitative for the cod and tuna, in which arsenic is mainly pr esent as arsenobetaine (about 90% of total As extracted). In contrast, only 60% of the element is extracted from the mussels and the chromat ograms obtained reveal the presence of an unknown compound, Detection limits are in the mu g ml(-1) range for the HPLC-ICP-OES technique (qu antification of arsenobetaine and arsenocholine) and in the ng ml(-1) range for the HPLC-HG-QFAAS system (quantification of arsenite, arsena te, monomethylarsonic and dimethylarsinic acids).