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Abstract
Arsenic (As) speciation in edible seaweed has received a considerable research interest due to its impact on the food safety and human health. In this paper, we developed a simple and cost-effective methodology to extract, separate, and analyze As species in Porphyra samples collected from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong provinces of China. Four extraction methods were compared in terms of extraction efficiency and resolution of As species. Microwave-assisted water extraction was chosen due to its short time (5 min) and high efficiency (93% of total As extracted). Total As concentration in the Porphyra samples varied within 14.0–42.1 µg g−1, determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) after acid digestion. Five As species were determined by high performance liquid chromatography—ultraviolet photo-oxidation—hydride generation—atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HPLC–(UV)–HG–AFS). DMA was found only in one sample with the concentration of 0.67 µg g−1. No As(III), As(V), MMA, and AsB were detected. Taken together, the As speciation results suggest that the risk associated with As in Porphyra to human health may be negligible.
Acknowledgments
C. Zhang and Y. Wang contributed to this article equally.
Notes
n.d. = not detected.
a LOD, calculated based on the definition from IUPAC.
b Calculated from seven independent replicates of a standard solution containing 50 µ g L−1of As per species.
c range of linearity in arsenic species:10–100 µ g L−1.
n.d. = not detected.
This research was funded by National Key Project in Scientific Foundation (2011BAD13B09), Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Biology (JSMK2011-002). We are grateful to Professor William Hendershot in McGill University for proof-reading the manuscript.