Solvent bar microextraction combined with electrothermal vaporization inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for the speciation of inorganic arsenic in water samples

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

A new method of solvent bar microextraction (SBME) combined with electrothermal vaporization inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ETV-ICP-MS) for the speciation of As(III) and As(V) in water samples was developed. The method is based on the chelation of As(III) and ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (APDC) under the selected conditions, and the As(III)-PDC complex could be extracted into the organic phase, while As(V) remained in aqueous solution. The post-extraction organic phase was directly injected into ETV-ICP-MS for determination of As(III) with the use of iridium as permanent chemical modifier. As(V) was reduced to As(III) by L-cysteine and was then subjected to SBME prior to total As determination. The assay of As(V) was based on subtracting As(III) from total As. The factors affecting on the SBME, such as organic solvent, sample pH, chelating reagent concentration, stirring rate and extraction time, and chemical modification of iridium in ETV-ICP-MS have been studied. Under the optimized conditions, the enrichment factor of 220-fold could be achieved in 15 min extraction, the limit of detection (LOD) for As(III) was 0.32 pg mL − 1 , and the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 8.8% (0.1 ng mL − 1 , n = 9). Compared with hollow fiber liquid phase microextraction (HF-LPME), SBME has a higher enrichment factor and faster extraction kinetics. In order to validate the accuracy of the method, a Certified Reference Material of GSBZ50004-88 (No. 200420) water sample was analyzed and the results obtained were in good agreement with the certified values. The developed method was also applied to the speciation of inorganic As in environmental waters with satisfactory results.