Arsenic extraction in marine biological materials using pressurised liquid extraction

A pressurised liquid extraction (PLE) procedure, by using methanol/water mixture, was developed for extracting arsenical species from marine biological material (mussel and fish) and standard reference materials (CRMs). A Plackett–Burman 28 × 3/64 designs (PBD) was used as a multivariate strategy for the evaluation of the effects of several variables (MeOH/H2O solvent mixture, temperature, static time, extraction steps, pressure, mean particle size and diatomaceous earth (DE) mass/sample mass ratio) on the extracting procedure. Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) was used to determine the total As concentration on the methanolic extracts. The accuracy of the optimised extraction procedure was verified by analysing several CRMs (GBW-08751, BCR-278R and DORM-2). The precision obtained (between 4.5 and 6.2%) was adequate. The extracted arsenic species (mainly arsenobetaine (AsB)) were analysed by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to ultraviolet cracking and hydride generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HPLC–UV-HG-AFS). The analytical performances obtained were adequate for the arsenic speciation in marine biological samples; LOD between 10 and 35 ng g−1. The accuracy was verified for AsB using DORM-2. Finally, the proposed method (PLE followed by HPLC–UV-HG-AFS) was applied to mussel and fish samples.