ELEMENTAL SPECIATION ANALYSIS BY MULTICAPILLARY GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH MICROWAVE-INDUCED PLASMA-ATOMIC SPECTROMETRIC DETECTION

Multicapillary column gas chromatography (MC-GC)/ microwave-induced pl asma atomic emission spectrometry (MIP AES) was developed for fast spe ciation analysis of organotin compounds in the environment. Ethylated butyltin compounds could be separated isothermally within less than 30 s (instead of similar to 5-10 min) without sacrificing either the res olution or the sample capacity of conventional capillary GC with oven temperature gradient programming, Careful optimization of the pressure and temperature GC program allowed a comprehensive organotin speciati on analysis including phenyltin compounds within less than 2.5 min, in creasing the sample throughput 6-fold. Compatibility of MC-GC with an MIP atomic emission detector (MIP-AED) was discussed. MC-GC/MIP-AES wa s validated for the analysis of sediment (PACS-1 and BCR 462) and biol ogical (NIES11) certified reference materials.