ABSTRACT
High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a modality of liquid chromatography involving the use of solid and liquid stationary and mobile phases, respectively. HPLC is often erroneously called high-pressure liquid chromatography, as it works at high pressure of the mobile phase. Normal-phase HPLC is characterized by the use of an inorganic adsorbent or chemically bonded stationary phase with polar functional groups. The chapter presents the speciation strategy for metal ions in the environmental and biological samples by HPLC using reversed-phase columns only. HPLC on reversed-phase columns has been used for the speciation of neutral or weakly charged metal complexes. The speciation of lead metal ion was achieved on reversed-phase columns. M. Robecke and K. Cammann evaluated an HPLC method for the determination of tetramethyllead and tetraethyllead using a LiChrospher 60 column. Reversed-phase HPLC was used for the speciation of inorganic and organic mercury species. Selection of a suitable column is the key issue in the speciation of metal ions by reversed-phase HPLC.
