Atomic Spectrometry Update. Clinical and biological materials, foods and beverages

This latest Atomic Spectrometry Update for Clinical and Biological Materials, Foods and Beverages has been prepared with a slightly revised writing team. Linda Owen, who has drafted the Foods and Beverages section for a number of years, is now responsible for FAPAS, the food analysis quality assessment scheme run by the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. She has decided that she cannot continue writing and has stepped down. Andy Fisher, an established member of the ASU organisation, has very effectively taken over this task. Some interesting sample preparation developments, aimed at simplifying these key steps in any analysis, are reported. These look to remove interfering organic components without increasing the reagent blank. A wider range of instrumentation for ICP-MS is much more evident with time-of-flight, sector field (or high resolution) and electrospray MS being used in addition to traditional quadrupole MS. Work with capillary electrophoresis for speciation continues to impress. Reports where the movable reduction bed hydride generator has been used are starting to appear and it is likely that this trend will continue. The main areas of interest are unchanged. Selenium is of fundamental importance in both the food and clinical areas. Use of XRF, AAS and ICP-MS illustrate the different facets of studies involving Pb, while interest in As and Hg is dominated by requirements for speciation.