Strategies of sample preparation for speciation analysis of inorganic antimony using hydride generation atomic spectrometry

This paper reports a review about strategies developed for speciation analysis of inorganic antimony employing spectroanalytical techniques. Generally, the speciation analysis of inorganic antimony is performed in two steps. Antimony(III) is quantified in the presence or absence of citrate, which acts as masking agent for antimony(V). Total antimony is determined after reduction of antimony(V) to antimony(III) using L-cysteine, iodide, thiourea or bromide as reducing agents. Applications and limitations of the procedures used for extraction of the antimony species in liquid and solid matrices have been summarized and discussed. Hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and EDTA solutions are the extracting agents more employed for this purpose. Also a brief discussion on the antimony hydride generation is made. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) are the detection techniques more often used in speciation analysis of inorganic antimony. Advantages and drawbacks of coupling of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with HG AAS, HG AFS and ICP-MS are also discussed. Procedures involving solid phase extraction, liquid-liquid extraction, cloud point extraction and slurry sampling in methods developed for speciation analysis of antimony are summarized and presented including tables with analytical parameters. Most of the proposed methods were established using solid phase extraction because of the advantages of this separation technique. The literature review reports the period from 2003 to 2013. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.