Non-chromatographic speciation analysis of arsenic and antimony in milk hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry

A rapid, high sensitivity method has been developed for the determination of As(III), As(V), Sb(III) and Sb(V) in milk samples by using hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry. The method is based on the leaching of As and Sb from milk through the sonication of samples with aqua regia followed by direct determination of the corresponding hydrides both before and after reduction with KI. It was confirmed by recovery experiments on spiked commercially available samples that neither the reduced nor the oxidized forms of the elements under study or mixtures of the two oxidation states were modified by the room temperature sample treatment with aqua regia. The methodologies developed provided 3σ limit of detection values of 8.1, 10.3, 5.4 and 7.7 ng l⁻¹ for As(III), As(V), Sb(III) and Sb(V) in the diluted samples. Average relative standard deviation values of 5.7, 5.5, 8.2 and 4.7% were found for determination of As(III), As(V), Sb(III) and Sb(V) in commercially available samples of different composition and origin containing from 3.5 to 13.6 ng g⁻¹ total As and from 4.9 to 11.8 ng g⁻¹ total Sb, it being confirmed that As(V) and Sb(V) are the main species present in the samples analyzed (62±5 and 73±5%, respectively). The time required to determine As and Sb species in milk involves 10 min sonication and 30 min prereduction but these steps can be carried out for several sample simultaneously. Additionally the fluorescence measurement step involves less than 20 min for three replicates of all the four measurements required. So, in less than 2 h it is possible to determine the content of As(III), As(V), Sb(III) and Sb(V) in four samples.