Capillary electrophoretic analysis of arsenic species with indirect laser induced fluorescence detection

Abstract

The development of a method for determining arsenic species by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with indirect laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) is described in this paper. The buffer pH, the concentration of fluorescein, the nature and the concentration of the background electrolytes (BGEs) were defined. When 2.0 mM NaHCO3 (pH 9.28) with 10–7 M fluorescein was used as the buffer, arsenite (As(III)), dimethylarsonic acid (DMA), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), and arsenate (As(V)) were all separated from one another. The limits of detection for the four arsenic species were in the range of 0.12–0.54 mg/L. This method was used in the analysis of spiked arsenic species in tap and mineral water to demonstrate its usefulness. The results showed that both the recovery and the reproducibility of the developed method were acceptable.