Speciation of inorganic arsenic by electrochemical hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry

A simple procedure was developed for the speciation of inorganic arsenic by electrochemical hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (EcHG–AAS), without pre-reduction of As(V). Glassy carbon was selected as cathode material in the flow cell. An optimum catholyte concentration for simultaneous generation of arsine from As(III) and As(V) was 0.06 mol l−1 H2SO4. Under the optimized conditions, adequate sensitivity and difference in ratio of slopes of the calibration curves for As(III) and As(V) can be achieved at the electrolytic currents of 0.6 and 1 A. The speciation of inorganic arsenic can be performed by controlling the electrolytic currents, and the concentration of As(III) and As(V) in the sample can be calculated according to the equations of absorbance additivity obtained at two selected electrolytic currents. The calibration curves were linear up to 50 ng ml−1 for both As(III) and As(V) at 0.6 and 1 A. The detection limits of the method were 0.2 and 0.5 ng ml−1 for As(III) and As(V) at 0.6 A, respectively. The relative standard deviations were of 2.1% for 20 ng ml−1 As(III) and 2.5% for 20 ng ml−1 As(V). The method was validated by the analysis of human hair certified reference material and successfully applied to speciation of soluble inorganic arsenic in Chinese medicine.