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Ion chromatography (IC) coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was systematically investigated for determining the speciation of chromium in environmental samples. Firstly, the stability of complexes formed by Cr(III) with various aminopolycarboxylic acids was studied by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The results showed that [Cr(EDTA)](-) was stable in solution. Secondly, various mobile phases were examined to separate Cl(-) from chromium species by IC to avoid Cl(-) interference. The separation of [Cr(EDTA)](-) and Cr(VI) was achieved on a new anion-exchange column (G3154A/102) using a mobile phase containing 20mM NH(4)NO(3) and 10mM NH(4)H(2)PO(4) at pH 7.0 without Cl(-) interference. Detection limits for chromium species were below 0.2 microg/L with a direct injection of sample and without prior removal of interferences from the matrix. Finally, the proposed method was used for the determination of chromium species in contaminated waters.

Sodium potassium absorption ratio (SPAR) is an important measure of agricultural water quality, wherein four exchangeable cations (K(+), Na(+), Ca(2+) and Mg(2+)) should be simultaneously determined. An ISE-array is suitable for this application because its simplicity, rapid response characteristics and lower cost. However, cross-interferences caused by the poor selectivity of ISEs need to be overcome using multivariate chemometric methods. In this paper, a solid contact ISE array, based on a Prussian blue modified glassy carbon electrode (PB-GCE), was applied with a novel chemometric strategy. One of the most popular independent component analysis (ICA) methods, the fast fixed-point algorithm for ICA (fastICA), was implemented by the genetic algorithm (geneticICA) to avoid the local maxima problem commonly observed with fastICA. This geneticICA can be implemented as a data preprocessing method to improve the prediction accuracy of the Back-propagation neural network (BPNN). The ISE array system was validated using 20 real irrigation water samples from South Australia, and acceptable prediction accuracies were obtained. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Ion-pairing chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) used for the speciation of phosphorus is limited as the mobile phase containing organic solvents changes in detection sensitivity and the carbon precipitates on torch and cones. To address this issue, anion-exchange chromatography with ICP-MS has been used for the speciation of glyphosate, phosphate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in soil extracts. The separation of the targets on a new column was achieved within 5 min using an eluent containing 20 mM NH(4)NO(3) at pH 5.1. Furthermore, since the polyatomic ions such as (14)N(16)O(1)H(+) and (15)N(16)O(+) from a nitrogen-based ion-pairing reagent interfered with ICP-MS detection of (31)P, an octopole reaction system was investigated to determine whether the polyatomic interferences could be reduced. The results show that addition of He to the cell can benefit analyses by reducing such interferences, but at the expense of reduced sensitivity. The detection limits in the range of 1.0-1.5 microg L(-1) (expressed as P) was achieved when 50 microL was injected using He as the collusion gas.

A non-suppressed ion chromatography (IC) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been developed for simultaneous determination of trace iodate and iodide in seawater. An anion-exchange column (G3154A/101, provided by Agilent) was used for the separation of iodate and iodide with an eluent containing 20mM NH(4)NO(3) at pH 5.6, which reduced the build-up of salts on the sampler and skimmer cones. The influences of competing ion (NO(3)(-)) in the eluent on the retention time and detection sensitivity were investigated to give reasonable resolution and detection limits. Linear plots were obtained in a concentration range of 5.0-500 microg/L and the detection limit was 1.5 microg/L for iodate and 2.0 microg/L for iodide. The proposed method was used to determinate iodate and iodide in seawaters without sample pre-treatment with exception of dilution.