ABSTRACT
According to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry definition, metal speciation in foods comprises analytical activities of identifying and/or measuring the quantities of one or more individual chemical species in a sample. The analytical instrumental approach is usually based on the combination of a chromatographic separation technique with an element-specific detection technique. Mass spectrometry of molecular ions, which is a common detection technique in gas chromatography of organic compounds, is relatively seldom used in speciation analysis. For quantitative analysis, the systems are operated in the single-ion monitoring mode; for most organometallic compounds, detection limits at the low picogram level can be achieved. High performance liquid chromatography inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry with enriched stable isotopes is a unique analytical method by which speciation of both endogenous elements and exogenous tracers can be achieved in a single experiment.
