Overview

This document (EN 16802:2016) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 275 "Food analysis - Horizontal methods", the secretariat of which is held by DIN (Germany). The responsible German committee is Working Committee NA 057-01-09 AA "Elemente und ihre Verbindungen" ("Elements and their chemical species") at the DIN Standards Committee Food and Agricultural Products (NAL). This European Standard describes a procedure for the determination of inorganic arsenic in foodstuffs of marine and plant origin by anion-exchange HPLC-ICP-MS following waterbath extraction. This method has been validated in an interlaboratory test on white rice, wholemeal rice, leek, blue mussels, fish muscle and seaweed with an inorganic arsenic mass fraction in the range 0,073 mg/kg to 10,3 mg/kg. Inorganic arsenic consists of arsenite, As(III) and arsenate, As(V). A representative test portion of the sample is treated with a diluted nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide solution in a heated waterbath. Hereby the arsenic species are extracted into solution and As(III) is oxidized to As(V). The inorganic arsenic is selectively separated from other arsenic compounds using anion exchange HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) coupled online to the element-specific detector ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) for the determination of the mass fraction of inorganic arsenic. External calibration with solvent matrix-matched standards is used for quantification of the amount of inorganic arsenic.

Document: references other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 057-01-09 AA - Elements and their chemical species  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 275/WG 10 - Elements and their chemical species