Strategies for mercury speciation with single and multi-element approaches by HPLC-ICP-MS

Laura Favilli; Agnese Giacomino; Mery Malandrino; Paolo Inaudi; Aleandro Diana; Ornella Abollino

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.1082956

Strategies for mercury speciation with single and multi-element approaches by HPLC-ICP-MS

Front Chem. 2022 Dec 1:10:1082956. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.1082956. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Laura Favilli¹, Agnese Giacomino¹, Mery Malandrino², Paolo Inaudi¹, Aleandro Diana², Ornella Abollino¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Drug Science and Technology, University of Torino, Turin, Italy.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Torino, Torino, Italy.

Abstract

Mercury (Hg) and its compounds are highly toxic for humans and ecosystems, and their chemical forms determine both their behavior and transportation as well as their potential toxicity for human beings. Determining the various species of an element is therefore more crucial than understanding its overall concentration in samples. For this reason, several studies focus on the development of new analytical techniques for the identification, characterization, and quantification of Hg compounds. Commercially available, hyphenated technology, such as HPLC-ICP-MS, supports the rapid growth of speciation analysis. This review aims to summarize and critically examine different approaches for the quantification of mercury species in different samples using HPLC-ICP-MS. The steps preceding the quantification of the analyte, namely sampling and pretreatment, will also be addressed. The scenarios evaluated comprehend single and multi-element speciation analysis to create a complete guide about mercury content quantification.

Keywords: HPLC-ICP-MS; biological sample; ifenation; mercury; multi-element; speciation.

Publication types

Review