Study on simultaneous speciation of arsenic and antimony by HPLC–ICP-MS

A method was developed for the simultaneous speciation of arsenic and antimony with HPLC–ICP-MS using C30 reversed phase column. Eight kinds of arsenic compounds (As(III), As(V), monomethylarsonic acid (MMAA), dimethylarsinic acid (DMAA), arsenobetaine (AB), arsenocholine (AsC), trimethylarsine oxide (TMAO) and tetramethylarsonium (TeMA)), Sb(III) and Sb(V) were simultaneously separated by the special mobile phase containing ammonium tartrate. Especially for the species of organic As, a C30 column was better than a C18 column in the effect of separation. Limits of detection (LOD) for these elements were 0.2 ng ml−1 for the species of each As, and 0.5 ng ml−1 for the species of each Sb, when a 10 μl of sample was injected, respectively. The proposed method was applied to a hot spring water and a fish sample.