Sensitive determination of phenylarsenic compounds based on a dual preconcentration method with capillary electrophoresis/UV detection

A novel method based on off-line hollow fiber based liquid liquid liquid microextraction (HF-LLLME) combined with on-column anion selective exhaustive injection (ASEI)-capillary electrophoresis/ultraviolet (CE/UV) detection was proposed for the speciation of five phenylarsenic compounds including phenylarsonic acid (PAA), 4-aminophenylarsonic acid (4-APAA), 4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid (4-HPAA), 4-nitrophenylarsonic acid (4-NPAA) and 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid (NHPAA) in this paper. In HF-LLLME, the target analytes were extracted from 5 mL aqueous samples (donor solution pH 2.15) through a thin phase of tributyl phosphate (TBP) inside the pores of a polypropylene hollow fiber and finally into an 18 μL 0.8 mmol/L Tris acceptor solution inside the lumen of the hollow fiber. Following HF-LLLME, the acceptor solutions were directly analyzed by ASEI-CE/UV. For ASEI, a large plug of water (91% length of total capillary) was introduced into the separation capillary before sample injection in order to prolong the sample injection time, and thus enhance the stacking efficiency. Under the optimized ASEI conditions, up to 236-fold of enrichment factor (EF) was obtained for the ASEI-CE/UV determination of target phenylarsenic compounds. By combining HF-LLLME with ASEI-CE/UV, EFs ranging from 155 to 1780-fold were achieved and the limits of detection (LODs) (at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3) were in the range of 0.68-6.90 μg/L for five phenylarsenic compounds; the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of corrected peak area were 5.6-11.8%. The proposed HF-LLLME-ASEI-CE/UV method was applied for the determination of five target phenylarsenic compounds in pig feed from a local pig farm, and storage pig litter, soil in agricultural field and lake water collected near this pig farm, the recoveries for the spiked samples were in the range of 85.7-104.5%, 66.7-96.2%, 28.9-46.9% and 86.9-107.8% for pig feed, pig litter, soil and lake water, respectively.