Molecules and atoms in elemental speciation analysis: the changing paradigms over the last three decades
Résumé
The understanding that the reactivity of trace elements is controlled by their chemical form has
raised interest in analytical methods targeting the particular species of essential and toxic
metals and metalloids. While the earlier approaches aimed at the isolation of a single metalcontaining
compound in amount sufficient for NMR characterization, the development of more
sensitive and less time-consuming analytical techniques increased the number of metal species
of interest and resulted in the emergence of a field in analytical chemistry, referred to as
speciation analysis