Integrated measurement of the chemical forms of essential and toxicologically important trace elements in nutritional supplements, food, biological tissues and fluids

At present no commercially available equipment and standard methods are available for the cost effective routine measurement of the chemical forms of trace elements in samples. This project will develop an integrated measuring system based on coupling a Perkin Elmer high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) to a Perkin Elmer inductive coupled mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) for mearuing the chemical forms of selenium, mercury, anitmony, tin, chromium and arsenic, in nutritional supplements, food, animal tissues and human blood and urine. The information gained in the development of analytical protocols will be used to prepare standard methods for general use by Australian food and drug registration and environmental regulatory agencies. This will allow the essential nature and the toxicology of these elements to be assessed and used to set food and drug compliance, food safety, occupational exposure, and environmental protection guidelines. This collaboration will allow Perkin Elmer, the industry partner, to develop their HPLC-ICP-MS hardware and software.