THE IDENTIFICATION OF SOME WATER-SOLUBLE ARSENIC SPECIES IN THE MARINE BROWN-ALGAE FUCUS-DISTICHUS

The extraction and clean-up procedures developed to isolate the water- soluble arsenic species present in the marine macroalga Fucus distichu s, from British Columbia, Canada, are described, The arsenic species w ere extracted into methanol and then subjected to gel-permeation and i on-exchange chromatography, Fractions high in arsenic were identified by using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (GF-AAS), and further investigated by using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP MS), By using different HPLC columns and mobile-phase conditions, the four major arsenic-containing compounds present in the macroalga were posi tively identified as arsenosugars; one minor compound remained unident ified. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.