Determination of arsenobetaine, arsenocholine, and tetramethylarsonium cations in seafoods and human urine by high-performance liquid chromatography-thermochemical hydride generation-atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A simple method was developed for the determination of arsonium compounds in edible marine tissues (lobster tail muscle, peeled deveined shrimp, cod fillet, and cod liver oil) and human urine. The homogenized marine tissue (5-10 g (or an equivalent weight of freeze-dried powder)) was blended with methanol; the extracts were combined and flash evaporated. Alternatively, urine (5 mL) was diluted with 50 mL of ethanol and placed in a dry ice-acetone bath for 20 min. Supernatant was separated from the resulting precipitate by centrifugation and flash evaporated. Residues from either sample type were resuspended in water, filtered through an anion exchanger, and acidified. The arsonium analytes were partitioned into liquefied phenol, which was diluted with diethyl ether and back extracted with water. The combined water extracts were taken to dryness, redissolved in methanol, concentrated to 1 mL, and separated on a cyanopropyl bonded-phase column using a methanolic mobile phase containing 19% (v/v) diethyl ether, 1% (v/v) acetic acid, 0.12% (v/v) triethylamine, and pricrylsulfonic acid (0.200 g/L). Analytes were detected on-line by thermochemical hydride generation-atomic absorption spectrometry. Recoveries from tissues or from urine which had been spiked at 0.1-3.4 {mu}g of cation/g of fresh weight were 83% or greater from eachmore » of the five sample types.« less