Accurate Determination of Arsenic Speciation in Shellfish by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Collision/Reaction Cell Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and Health Risk Assessment

This study aimed at developing an accurate method for determining the levels of total arsenic and arsenic species in edible species of shellfish using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with collision/reaction cell inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to assess the healthy risk objectively. The shellfish samples were extracted using ultrasonic bath extraction(0.15 mol/L HNO₃),separated under the optimized chromatographic conditions(50 mmol/L(NH₄)₂CO₃,pH=9.5)and determined with O₂ mass-shift mode. Good linearities of six arsenic species were observed with correlation coefficients above 0.999.Limits of detection were between 0.009~0.028 μg/L. Relative standard deviation were within 3.6%~8.3% and recoveries were between 91.2%~106.2%. The results showed that AsB was the predominant as species in the shellfish samples of Qingdao City and inorganic arsenic contents meets the international limit.