Speciation Analysis by Pre-separation Procedures in Combination with Nuclear Analytical Techniques

6 Speciation Analysis by Pre-separation Procedures in Combination with Nuclear Analytical Techniques 

Although NATs are thought to be unsuitable for speciation analysis, in recent years, more and more nuclear analysts have endeavored to use NATs for speciation studies by combinating NATs with specific pre-separation procedures to provide chemical species information. A variety of physical, chemical, or biological separation procedures have been developed in combination with NATs. The general experimental methods of the hybrid NATs being used for chemical speciation studies are listed in Table 8.3.  

Chemical Solvent extraction Neutron activation analysis 

Taken together, nowadays we are able to study iron metabolism and distribution at the tissue, cellular, subcellular, or even molecular level by NATs independently or by combining NATs with a variety of pre-separation procedures. The improvement and upgrade of the qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques are the challenges for further progress on the species study at molecular level and the promotion for the development of metallo-genomics, metalloproteomics, and metallomics of iron. 

Guangjun Nie gratefully acknowledges the support of the Hundred Talents Program, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The work was supported partially by grants from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (10979011, 30900278). The authors also thank Dr Prem Ponka for his support. 

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