Rapid determination of total iodine in Japanese coastal seawater using SF-ICP-MS

A simple and rapid analytical method to measure total iodine in seawater using sector-filed ICP-MS is presented here. The new method avoided tedious and complicated organic iodine decomposing and redox treatment. In addition, no pre-concentration and separation operations are needed. The seawater was diluted 100-fold with 0.5% TMAH prior to SF-ICP-MS analysis. Te was added as internal standard. Due to the high sensitivity of SF-ICP-MS, excellent detection limit of 0.23 ng ml(-1) in original seawater was obtained. By applying this newly developed method, for the first time, the total iodine concentrations in Japanese coastal seawaters in 14 estuaries were investigated. An average value of 58.26 +/- 6.30 ng ml(-1) (n = 59) for total iodine concentration was obtained for future study on the estimation of sediment-water distribution coefficients and the concentration ratios from water to organisms in Japanese coastal marine environment. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.