Availability of CRM for validation of trace element speciation analysis

Abstract

Speciation analysis interest has been growing over the last years as it has been realised that it is necessary to determine the chemical form of an element to understand fully the effects or toxicity of it. The study of the contamination of food products, along with the pollution of the environment, are the most prominent applied fields on speciation analysis. For this kind of analysis, it is necessary to combine a variety of techniques that alter the species in a sample, resulting in a loss of information. Therefore, quality control is required. Reference materials, especially certified reference materials, are among the most useful analytical tools as they provide a traceable value that can prove the reliability of a method. The CRM and the sample to be analysed must be as similar as possible with respect to matrix and analyte concentration. For this reason, a review of the current available CRMs for this area will be made. The research will be focused on those articles that incorporate atomic spectrometry and molecular detection as the measurement techniques. The obtained results will be classified and discussed based on the trace element studied