Method development for speciation analysis of nanoparticle and ionic forms of gold in biological samples by high performance liquid chromatography hyphenated to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Abstract

A new method based on coupling high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS) has been developed for the speciation analysis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and dissolved gold species (Au(III)) in biological samples. The column type, the composition and the flow rate of the mobile phase were carefully investigated in order to optimize the separation conditions. The usefulness of two polymeric reversed phase columns (PLRP-S with 100nm and 400nm pore size) to separate gold species were investigated for the first time. Under the optimal conditions (PLRP-S400 column, 10mmolL−1 SDS and 5% methanol as the mobile phase, 0.5mLmin−1 flow rate), detection limits of 2.2ngL−1 for Au(III), 2.8ngL−1 for 10nm AuNPs and 3.7ngL−1 for 40nm AuNPs were achieved. The accuracy of the method was proved by analysis of reference material RM 8011 (NIST) of gold nanoparticles of nominal diameter of 10nm. The HPLC-ICP MS method has been successfully applied to the detection and size characterization of gold species in lysates of green algae Acutodesmus obliquus, typical representative of phytoplankton flora, incubated with 10nm AuNPs or Au(III).