Abstract
Toxicity of arsenic compounds depends on the chemical structure as well as the concentration. Thus, separation of the toxic arsenic species should precede the quantification for the accurate toxicity assessment. Ion chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (IC-ICP-MS) has been the most popular method for separation and quantification of toxic arsenic species. However, the method requires complex instrument, elaborate sample preparation, and long analysis time. In this work, toxic inorganic arsenic species in water was separated by the simple solid phase extraction (SPE) using a strong anion-exchange membrane filter, and then the membrane filter was analyzed by femtosecond laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (fs-LA-ICP-MS). The pH value of the sample was adjusted to 4 using ammonium hydroxide and phosphoric acid for the complete separation of the toxic inorganic arsenic from the other organic arsenics. The linear dynamic range was from 0.5 to 1000 μg/kg, and the correlation coefficient was 0.99989. The recovery efficiency was 96‑106%. The detection limit of the inorganic arsenic was 0.028 μg/kg. Our results indicate that SPE-fs-LA-ICP-MS provides enough analytical performance to analyze the toxic inorganic arsenic in water at the level of parts per trillion using the simple separation method and the rapid laser ablation sampling.
Highlights
Arsenic has a single isotope (75As) and is the 53rd most abundant element (1.5 mg/kg) in the earth’s crust (Audi et al 2003; Haynes 2016)
The corresponding recovery of total inorganic in a sample made by As(III), As(V), and Dimethyl arsinic acid (DMA) was 98% of 10.0 μg/kg As(III) and 9.9 μg/kg As(V). This result indicates that the separation of the inorganic arsenic species from DMA was well completed by the anionic separator filter
Inorganic arsenic species, As(III) and As(V), dissolved in water was separated from the co-dissolved organoarsenic by the simple solid phase extraction (SPE) method using an anion-exchange membrane filter
Summary
Arsenic has a single isotope (75As) and is the 53rd most abundant element (1.5 mg/kg) in the earth’s crust (Audi et al 2003; Haynes 2016). The main sources of human exposure to arsenic are known as food, water, soil, and air Arsenic can exist in any environmental and biological systems in a variety of forms; it can remain in plants or shellfish grown in arseniccontaminated water or soil and enter the human body through the food chain The chronic arsenic exposure is known to cause diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers of the skin and internal organs (Martinez et al 2011). In Bangladesh, for example, 40,000 people died of chronic arsenic exposure (~5.6% of the dead each year) (Flanagan et al 2012). For this reason, there is a great interest in arsenic in various fields including both manufacturing and agricultural industries.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
