High-performance liquid chromatography-isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for speciation studies: an overview

High-performance liquid chromatography–isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (HPLC–ID-ICP-MS) provides the coupling of two established instrumental techniques to achieve accurate and precise measurements. The approach offers considerable potential for speciation studies. On its own, isotope dilution is regarded as being a definitive technique that overcomes many problems associated with instrumental drift and incomplete extraction of analytes from samples. These advantages are also inherent in HPLC–ID-ICP-MS although the technique does require isotopically pure standards and cannot overcome problems associated with speciation changes and contamination. This overview describes the procedures used and the requirements necessary to achieve accurate and reliable results when using HPLC–ID-ICP-MS and outlines the application of this technique to speciation studies on tin and lead. A short review of other work published in this area is also presented.