On-line determination of antimony(III) and antimony(V) in liver tissue and whole blood by flow injection – hydride generation – atomic absorption spectrometry

A new analytical procedure for the speciation of antimony in liver tissues is presented here. For this purpose, a flow injection system has been developed for the treatment of samples and the determination of antimony by hydride generation – atomic absorption spectrometry. The method involves the sequential and the on-line extraction of antimony(III) and antimony(V) from solid lyophilized blood and hamsters liver tissues, with 1.5 mol l−1 acetic acid and 0.5 mol l−1 sulfuric acid for Sb(III) and Sb(V), respectively. Reduction of Sb(V) to Sb(III) for stibine generation is effected by the on-line pre-reduction with l-cysteine. The linear ranges were 2.5–20 and 1.0–25 μg l−1 of Sb(III) and Sb(V), respectively. The detection limits (3σ) were 1.0 μg l−1 for Sb(III) and 0.5 μg l−1 for Sb(V). The relative standard deviation values for fifteen independent measurements were 2.1 and 1.8% for Sb(III) and Sb(V), respectively. The recovery studies performed with samples of cattle liver provided results from 98 to 100% for Sb(III) and from 100 to 103% for Sb(V) for samples spiked with single species. For samples spiked with both Sb(III) and Sb(V), the recovery varied from 97 to 103% for Sb(III) and from 101 to 103% for Sb(V).