Determination of total antimony and antimony(V) by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after selective separation of antimony(III) by solvent extraction with N-benzoyl-N-phenylhydroxylamine

The study of antimony speciation in various types of natural water from the area of Warsaw city was performed. For this purpose the simple, fast and s pecific analytical method of determination of total inorganic antimony and antimony(V) in aqueous phase of the sample by inductively coupled plasma ma ss spectrometry (ICP-MS) was developed. The procedure is based on selective removal of antimony(III) by solvent extraction with N-benzoyl-N-phenylhydr oxylamine. The concentration of Sb(III) was calculated as a difference betw een total antimony and Sb(V) concentrations. The detection limit achieved b y described procedure in combination with ICP-MS detection was 0.7 ng l(-1) . The relative standard deviations for analysis of three samples containing 0.028-0.915 mu g l(-1) of total antimony and 0.027-0.894 mu g l(-1) of Sb( V) ranged from 0.46 to 2.9% and 0.60 to 3.7%, respectively. The antimony co ncentration in all samples analyzed was less than 1 mu g l(-1). Speciation studies revealed that in natural waters the prevailing chemical form is ant imony(V). The on-field separation of both forms of antimony assures stabili zation of speciation at the site of sampling. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V . All rights reserved.