Concepts for the identification and determination of selenium compounds in the aquatic environment

Organic selenium compounds play an important role in the global cycling of selenium. Only few methods exist for the determination of organic selenium compounds. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in combination with selenium-specific detection might be an appropriate method for the determination of these compounds. Three selenium-specific devices (FAAS, GFAAS, ICP-MS) are evaluated as Chromatographic detectors. The HPLC/FAAS system has absolute detection limits of 10 ng Se with linear calibration curves from 10 to 100 mg Se/l (100 μl injection). HPLC/ GFAAS has lower detection limits (1 ng Se) and linear calibration curves from 0.2 to 5 mg Se/1 (100 μl injection). HPLC/ ICP-MS shows the lowest absolute detection limits (0.1 ng Se) and the greatest linear calibration range (10 μg to 10 mg Se/l for 100 μl injection) of the investigated systems. The advantages, disadvantages, and possible applications for these hyphenated techniques are discussed. Directions of future research are proposed.