Talanta 44 (1997) 2201–2208 Multielemental speciation of As, Se, Sb and Te by HPLC-ICP-MS 1 T. Guerin a , M. Astruc a, *, A. Batel b , M. Borsier b a Uni6ersite´ de PAU et des Pays de l’Adour, Laboratoire de Chimie Analytique, A6enue de l’Uni6ersite´ , 64000 Pau, France b BRGM, De´partement Analyse, A6enue de Concyr, BP 6009, 45060 Orle´ans cedex 2, France Received 5 June 1996; received in revised form 26 November 1996; accepted 6 December 1996 Abstract An anion exchange HPLC-ICP-MS procedure allowing the simultaneous multielemental speciation analysis of arsenic, selenium, antimony and tellurium has been developed. Four arsenic species (As III , As V , monomethylarsonic acid and dimethylarsinic acid), two selenium species (Se IV and Se VI ) may be determined in a single run as well as one antimony (Sb V ) and one tellurium species (Te VI ). Alternatively Sb and/or Te may be used as internal standards for As and Se speciation studies. Optimisation of ICP-MS conditions led to satisfactory relative (0.01 (Sb V ) to 1.8 (Se VI ) ng ml -1 ) and absolute detection limits (1–180 pg). Reproducibility ranged from 3.1 to 5.6% and the linearity was verified in the 0–200 ng ml -1 range. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. Keywords: Multielemental speciation; Arsenic; Selenium; HPLC-ICP-MS 1. Introduction It is now well known that the toxicological and biological properties of most metals depend upon their chemical form. Chemical speciation analysis aims to determine the nature and concentration of the compounds of an element present in a given material. Knowledge of speciation is especially necessary for As, Se, Sb and Te compounds for which oxydated inorganic species are among the most toxic forms, whereas methylated forms such as monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) or dimethy- larsinic acid (DMA) are much less toxic. Arsenic is a very common pollutant deserving special at- tention. Selenium is of particular interest because of its dual role as an essential ultratrace nutrient on one hand and as a toxic when ingested at higher levels on the other hand. Antimony and tellurium have been the object of very few envi- ronmental studies. Several instrumental techniques have been de- veloped that allow selective detection of different species at very low levels. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) is a rela- tively new technique allowing the total concentra- tion determination of many elements with the * Corresponding author. 1 Presented at the Symposium on Analytical Sciences (SAS) IV, Belgium, 3–5 June, 1996. 0039-9140/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII S0039-9140(97)00036-2