Determination of antimony compounds in waters and juices using ion chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

•Speciation of antimony in water and fruit juices is reported.•Antimony species were separated in less than eight minutes in anion exchange column.•Antimony species from fruit juices were separated by centrifugation.•Two new species, possibly organo Sb(III) and Sb(V), were found in fruit granules.

A method was developed by coupling ion chromatography (IC) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for the speciation of antimony. In this study, antimony species such as antimonite [Sb(III)], antimonate [Sb(V)] and trimethyl antimony(V) (TMeSb) were separated in less than 8 min using anion exchange chromatography with a Hamilton PRP-X100 column as the stationary phase. Mobile phase A was 20 mmol L−1 ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), 2 mmol L−1 potassium hydrogen phthalate (KHP) in 1% v/v methanol (pH 5.5) and 20 mmol L−1 EDTA, 2 mmol L−1 KHP, 40 mmol L−1 (NH4)2CO3 in 1% v/v methanol (pH 9.0) formed mobile phase B. Detection limits and relative standard deviations (RSD) were 0.012-0.032 ng mL−1 and 2.2-2.8% respectively. This method was applied to bottled waters and fruit juices purchased in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In water samples, Sb(V) was the major species where as in juices organometallic Sb species were also present.

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