It has become increasingly evident that the toxicity, mobility, bioavailability and bioaccumulation of metals are dependent on the particular physico-chemical form in which the element occurs in the environment. Special attention is paid to metals, which are essential for the proper functioning of organisms if present in appropriate amounts but are toxic if in excess (i.e. Se, Cr, Zn), and also to non-essential elements (i.e. Hg, Pb, Cd, Sn and As). To assess the potential hazard to the health of marine organisms, qualitative and quantitative analysis of metal species accumulating along the food chain needs to be carried out. The paper reviews the available information on the speciation of trace elements in the food chain in marine ecosystems and the analytical tools used for acquiring reliable information in this field. Advantages and limitations of commonly used techniques are pointed out to show that all metal species in different samples need diverse extraction, separation and detection conditions. The paper does not hint which procedure is the most suitable to determine a given compound, but it indicates that speciation analysis has a big potential to be a powerful tool for heavy metals detection and quantification in biological samples.
Authors
Additional information
- Category
- Publikacja w czasopiśmie
- Type
- artykuł w czasopiśmie wyróżnionym w JCR
- Language
- angielski
- Publication year
- 2011
