Determination of inorganic arsenic species by flow injection hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry with variable sodium tetrahydroborate concentrations

This work describes a study on the determination of inorganic arsenic species in ground water and synthetic experimental matrices, using a flow injection system with on-line hydride generation device coupled to an atomic absorption spectrometer with flame-heated quartz atomizer (FI HG AAS). Specific trivalent arsenic determination is based on the slow kinetics of As(V) on the hydride generation reaction using sufficiently low concentrations of sodium tetrahydroborate (NaBH4) as reductant in highly acidic conditions (pH<0). Under these conditions, the efficiency of hydride generation from As(V) is much lower than that from As(III). The pentavalent form is determined by the difference between total inorganic arsenic and As(III). As(V) interferences were studied using As(III) solutions ranging from 0% to 50% of total inorganic As. The optimized NaBH4 concentration was 0.035% (w/v). The detection limit was 1.4 μg l−1 As(III). As(V) interferences were 6% in the case of water samples with 6 μg l−1 As(III) in the presence of 54 μg l−1 As(V) (i.e. 10% As(III)). Interferences of methylated arsenic species (MMA and DMA) were evaluated. Speciation method was satisfactorily applied to 20 field arsenical water samples from Santa Fe, Argentina, with values ranging from 30 to 308 μg l−1 total As. We found from 0% to 36% As(III) in the 20 field samples. The developed methodology constitutes an economic, simple and reliable way to evaluate inorganic arsenic distribution in underground waters or similar systems with negligible or no content of organoarsenicals.