Arsenic and antimony speciation analysis in the environment using hyphenated techniques to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry: a review

Elemental speciation involves the separation and quantification of different oxidation states or chemical forms of a particular trace element. Trace metals exhibit widely different toxicities depending on their elemental species in the environment. On the other hand, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is considered to be the method of choice for elemental analysis for several reasons. In this review, the speciation analysis of arsenic and antimony in environmental samples using ICP-MS detection is described. In this sense, the use of ICP-MS coupled with various separation techniques (e.g., HPLC, CE, GC, etc.) for the purpose of elemental speciation has recently gained a lot of attention.