Speciation of antimony for the 21st century: promises and pitfalls

The speciation of both volatile and non-volatile antimony compounds in biot a has undergone tremendous improvements during recent years. However, many severe problems such as the preservation of species information, the extrac tability of Sb, and the availability of Sb standard compounds still hamper the reliable speciation of Sb. Although distinct progress has been made tow ards the hyphenation of adequate separation devices with powerful element-s pecific detectors, only limited information can be derived from those exper iments. This review highlights the current state-of-the-art of Sb speciatio n, focusing on hyphenated instrumental techniques as well as on problems en countered. Issues such as biomethylation, biological significance, and occu pational and environmental exposure are discussed. The principal limitation s, and further directions for research needed to improve Sb speciation proc edures ave described. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.