Determination of total arsenic and speciation of As(III) and As(V) in ground water by charged particle activation analysis

The ability of charged particle activation analysis (CPAA) to determine at trace level of arsenic directly in ground water has been reported in this paper. The CPAA has been applied to determine total arsenic, As(III) and As(V) species in ground water collected from eastern part of India using similar to 16 MeV proton beam. The speciation of As(III) and As(V) was carried out using DOWEX 1 x 8 resin. The total arsenic concentrations were also determined by other conventional techniques for validation and values are in good agreement with that obtained by CPAA. As(III) concentration was found to be double than that of As(V) in ground water sample.