Towards Speciation of Arsenic in a Standard Reference River Sediment by High-performance Ion Chromatography Coupled With Plasma Source Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

A procedure for the extraction and separation of alkylarsenic species from Buffalo River Sediment standard reference material has been developed. The sample was sonicated in methanol–hydrochloric acid–water (50 + 10 + 40 v/v) and filtered. The arsenic species in the extract were separated by anion exchange HPLC, on a Hamilton PRP X-100 column, using phosphate (pH 6.0) and citrate (pH 6.0) buffers as eluents, and detected by direct aspiration into an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Monomethylarsonic acid, at a concentration of about 0.2 mg kg ^{- 1} in the solid, was detected.