Determination of arsenic species in marine organisms by HPLC-ICP-OES and HPLC-HG-QFAAS

Separation and quantification of six arsenic species have been performed in cod, tuna and mussel samples by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and hydride generation-quartz furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (HG-QFAAS) as detection techniques. It has been shown that arsenic extraction with a water-methanol (1:1) mixture is sufficiently quantitative for the cod and tuna, in which arsenic is mainly present as arsenobetaine (about 90% of total As extracted). In contrast, only 60% of the element is extracted from the mussels and the chromatograms obtained reveal the presence of an unknown compound, Detection limits are in the mu g ml(-1) range for the HPLC-ICP-OES technique (quantification of arsenobetaine and arsenocholine) and in the ng ml(-1) range for the HPLC-HG-QFAAS system (quantification of arsenite, arsenate, monomethylarsonic and dimethylarsinic acids).