Speciation of challenging elements in food by atomic spectrometry

The review addresses trends in speciation analysis of challenging - rather rarely examined despite their importance for human health - elements in foodstuffs with special attention prior to sample preparation. Elements of interest are cobalt, iodine, manganese, iron, zinc, copper and molybdenum belong to the group of elements still appealed for searching their speciation despite extremely small contents in foodstuffs. Advantages and weaknesses of recommended procedures are overviewed and discussed, highlighting state-of-the-art speciation methodologies developed so far in the field. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.