Applications of solid phase microextraction for the determination of metallic and organometallic species.

This paper reviews recent developments of solid phase microextraction (SPME) and its application to the analysis of organometallic species of lead, arsenic, mercury, tin, and selenium by hyphenation with HPLC-GC-atomic spectrometry. In the first part, a background of the technique is given in terms of derivatization, fibers used, extraction and desorption conditions. The second part summarizes typical SPME applications to the determination of organometallic species and the main experimental conditions with the aid of specific examples. Most of the applications comprise alkylation with NaBEt4 and headspace extraction followed by gas chromatographic separation with a suitable detector.