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Abstract
The simultaneous separation and determination of inorganic trivalent antimony Sb(III) and pentavalent antimony Sb(V) in plant, soil, and sediment samples was carried out by high performance liquid chromatography – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP-MS). The chromatographic conditions (composition and concentration of competing ion, pH value and flow rate of mobile phase) and the operating parameters for inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry were optimized by single factor experiments. The separation of the Sb species was achieved within 6 min using the optimized chromatographic conditions. The detection limits of the method were 0.016 μg/L and 0.021 μg/L for Sb(III) and Sb(V), respectively. The retention times of Sb(V) and Sb(III) were 2.7 min and 4.5 min, respectively. The relative standard deviations for replicate measurements (n = 6) of low (5 μg/L), medium (20 μg/L), and high (40 μg/L) concentrations of Sb(III) and Sb(V) were less than 4%. The results of spiking and recovery experiments for the extracting solutions of soil, sediments, and plants showed that the spiked recoveries of the two species ranged from 92% to 103%. This method has been used to determine the antimony species in extracts of environmental samples.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).