Analytical aspects speciation analysis

Apart from the development of a general method for the analysis of Hg species (see the previous section) during recent years, many applications have been developed and refined for seafood matrices. For the determination of Hg species in seafood, a wide range of methods primarily focus on the determination of Me-Hg. Some publications focus on selected aspects of sample pretreatment, while others deal with the features of the analytical instruments used. When higher detection power for speciation analysis is requested, GC-ICP-MS is often the method of choice. The procedure is based on three steps, as illustrated in Figure 22.3. 

Chapter 2 discusses several aspects of speciation analysis, e.g. definitions, existing regulations and sources of errors likely to occur at various steps of the analytical procedures. It is followed by Chapter 3 describing general principles of improvement schemes (organizational aspects) and basic requirements to be followed for the certification of reference materials. 

The term speciation , according to Bernhard et al. (1986a), encompasses three aspects (1) the actual distribution among molecular level entities in a given matrix, (2) the processes responsible for an observable distribution (species distribution), and (3) the analytical methods used (species analysis). Aspects (1) and (3) are compatible with the definition given by Ure (1990) and presented in Chapter 1. The second aspect, (2) above, is now seldom used in chemistry and... 

Atomic absorption, optical emission and atomic fluorescence as well as plasma mass spectrometry and new approaches such as laser enhanced ionization now represent strong tools for elemental analysis including speciation and are found in many analytical laboratories. Their power of detection, reliability in terms of systematic errors and their costs reflecting the economic aspects should be compared with those of other methods of analysis, when it comes to the development of strategies for solving analytical problems (Table 20). 

Speciation of organometallic compounds containing Au and Ag, on the other hand, was paid only scant attention as a subject for analytical research. The analytical methods that supported research on these compounds had to be dug out from the experimental sections of articles dealing with diverse aspects of chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc. A review appeared on some of the antiinflammatory drugs shown in Table 1, discussing determination of Au in body fluids and pharmaceutical preparations, and speciation of the compounds and their metabolites. The methods included varieties of atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), varieties of neutron activation analysis (NAA), inductively coupled plasma spectrometry combined with mass spectrometric detection (ICP-MS),... 

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