Determination of arsenic species in Solanum Lyratum Thunb using capillary electrophoresis with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

A simple and highly efficient interface to couple capillary electrophoresis with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry by a microflow polyfluoroalkoxy nebulizer and a quadruple ion deflector was developed in this study. By using this interface, six arsenic species, including arsenite, arsenate, monomethylarsonic acid, dimethylarsinic acid, arsenobetaine, and arsenocholine, were baseline‐separated and determined in a single run within 11 min under the optimized separation conditions. The instrumental detection limit was in the range of 0.02–0.06 ng/mL for the six arsenic compounds. Repeatability expressed as the relative standard deviation (n = 5) of both migration time and peak area were better than 2.5 and 4.3% for six arsenic compounds. The proposed method, combined with a closed‐vessel microwave‐assisted extraction procedure, was successfully applied for the determination of arsenic species in the Solanum Lyratum Thunb samples from Anhui province in China with the relative standard deviations (n = 5) ≤4%, method detection limits of 0.2–0.6 ng As/g and a recovery of 98–104%. The experimental results showed that arsenobetaine was the main speciation of arsenic in the Solanum Lyratum Thunb samples from different provinces in China, with a concentration of 0.42–1.30 μg/g.