High performance liquid chromatographic separation coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for elemental speciation in environmental samples

Elemental speciation in environmental samples is a growing concern in scientific community. This is because the various species of an element can have radically different impact in terms of their essentiality/toxicity on our bio-geo system due to their difference in physico-chemical properties. Being present in very complex environmental matrices, the species are often present at very low concentration and thus require appropriate analytical methodologies to address them.; Isolation of the analytes from the sample matrix requires careful consideration of sample preparation protocol in order to maintain the identity of the individual species. Elemental speciation often requires a chromatographic technique in order to separate individual species prior to their detection. A number of high performance liquid chromatographic methods were developed to separate the species of environmental interest. The liquid chromatographic separation techniques employed in the method development were size exclusion chromatography, reversed phase chromatography, and reversed phase ion pair chromatography. An inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used in hyphenation with the liquid chromatographic separation techniques as the detection system because of its low detection capability suitable for environmental analysis, sensitivity, multielemental detection as well as isobaric and polyatomic interference removal capability, and robustness.; A size exclusion chromatographic technique followed by online ICPMS detection was developed for studying speciation of toxic trace metals and essential micronutrients bound to the humic substances in compost samples derived from urban solid waste. In a similar study the effect of the metal ions on the molecular weight distribution of humic substances were investigated. The metal ions associated with the humic substances were found to play a crucial role in the structural features of humic substances. A reversed phase ion pair HPLC separation technique followed by ICPMS detection was developed for phosphorus containing herbicides in river water samples. A reversed phase HPLC method followed by its hyphenation to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric detector was developed for separation and identification of cadmium-phytochelatin species. The method was applied to investigate long distance root to shoot transport of cadmium chaperoned by phytochelatins in genetically modified Arabidopsis thaliana, in comparison with the wild type plants.