Retention behavior of inorganic and organic selenium compounds on a silica-based strong-cation-exchange column with an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer as selenium-specific detector

Abstract

The retention behavior of eight selenium compounds (selenous acid, selenic acid, selenocystine, selenohomocystine, selenomethionine, selenoethionine, trimethylselenonium iodide, and dimethyl(3-amino-3-carboxy-1-propyl)selenonium iodide) with aqueous solutions of pyridine (20 mmol/l) in the pH range 2.0–5.7 on a Supelcosil LC-SCX cation-exchange column was investigated. An inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer was employed as the selenium-specific detector. To increase the nebulization efficiency, the Meinhard concentric glass nebulizer was replaced by a hydraulic high-pressure nebulizer. At pH 5.0, seven selenium compounds could be separated within 400 s, but selenohomocystine and selenomethionine had the same retention time. Selenomethionine can be separated from selenohomocystine with an aqueous solution of pyridine (20 mmol/l) adjusted with formic acid to pH 2.0. At 1 ng Se ml −1, the relative standard deviations ( n=5) of the signal area for the eight selenium compounds ranged from 7 to 11%, and at 50 ng Se ml −1 from 0.6 to 2.6%.