[Application of high performance liquid chromatography and hyphenated techniques in analysis of arsenic species].

Arsenic is a very important nonmetal element in the environment and is vitally related to human lives. It is well known that the biological availability and toxicological effects of arsenic compounds depend upon their chemical forms, so it is necessary to detect the species of arsenic in some environmental samples, food, medicine, and body fluids. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is widely used in the research on arsenic species because of its high separation capability. The detection techniques used for arsenic species analysis have been improved rapidly with the gradually increasing demand for sensitivity and accuracy. Various hyphenated techniques have also been developed. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry has many advantages, such as high sensitivity, simultaneous multi-element detection, wide linear range and so on. Therefore, high performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is widely used in the analysis of arsenic species.