Element Speciation: Challenges and Prospects

✍ Scribed by S. Caroli

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 491 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0026-265X
• DOI: 10.1006/mchj.1995.1010

✦ Synopsis

A significant contribution to the further progress of environmental sciences is acknowledged to be linked to the development of innovative methodologies for the chemical speciation of elements in a variety of ecosystems. The identification, separation, and quantification of the forms under which an element may be present in a given matrix, in fact, are crucial to an effective assessment of its global impact on the environment and eventually on human health, as a greatly different noxious potential may characterize each species. A brief survey is presented to illustrate the most successful experimental approaches developed to date in this field, with particular reference to hyphenated instrumental methods which combine high-performance liquid chromatography with inductively coupled plasma-based spectroscopic techniques. Selected ongoing studies are also reported which provide evidence of the relevance of this kind of investigation to life sciences. 1995 Academic Press. Inc.