Speciation of inorganic selenium by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry with hydraulic high pressure nebulization

Abstract

The speciation of SeIV and SeVI was studied by using hydraulic high pressure nebulization for sample introduction in inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Ion-pair chromatography with a reversed-phase column was applied using tetrabutylammonium acetate as reagent and a methanol–water mixture as eluent. Operational conditions were carefully optimized. With a 200 µl sample loop for injection, detection limits of 0.14 µg l–1 were realized, whereas with an injection volume of 2 ml detection limits could be improved to 16 ng l–1. Application of the method is demonstrated by the analysis of a tap water sample.