Speciation of antimony in environmental matrices by coupled techniques

The development of coupled techniques, each based on the on-line combination of a separation system with a highly sensitive, selective atomic detector, can be considered a significant advance to allow the study of elemental speciation analysis. However, fewer methods have been developed for antimony (Sb) to determine speciation in environmental matrices, compared with those for arsenic or mercury.We describe current trends in Sb speciation, focusing mainly on methods based on high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography, and, to a lesser extent, other separation techniques, used in conjunction with element-specific detectors [i.e. atomic absorption spectrometry, atomic fluorescence spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and mass spectrometry (MS). We also describe the use of MS to identify chemical species and different applications of the methodologies reviewed for the determination of Sb species in environmental samples.