The most important features of the CE-ICP hyphenation, as well as its advantages and drawbacks as a tool for speciation are discussed. The fundamental principles of capillary electrophoresis and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry are also presented. Some applications involving different designs proposed in the literature to couple CE and ICP system for elemental speciation are reviewed.

Different methods have been applied to solve special problems of metal analysis. First, the solid samples of tool steels were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence. Alternatively, an on-line electrodissolution implemented in a flow injection system and conventional dissolution procedure for determination of W, Mo, V and Cr in tool steels by ICP-AES is described. The resulting analyte solutions were compared with conventional dissolution procedure and determination by ICP-AES. The electrolytic procedure presented a good performance characterized by a sample throughput of 164 determinations per hour. Results were in agreement with those obtained by conventional acid dissolution.

Anodic electrodissolution procedure in a flow injection system for determination of constituents in alloys is discussed. This approach implement sample preparation procedure by using a chamber and a DC power supply with constant direct current. Solid sample was attached to chamber as anode. In this review a general overview of these procedure is presented. The procedure presented a good performance characterized by a high sample throughput determinations, good accuracy and relative standard deviation.

An on-line electrodissolution procedure implemented in a flow injection system for determination of copper, zinc and lead in brasses alloys by ICP-AES is described. Sample dissolution procedure was carried out by using a PTFE chamber and a DC power supply with constant current. Solid sample was attached to chamber as anode and a gold tubing coupled in the chamber was used as cathode. An electrolytic solution flowing through the gold tubing closed the electric circuit with sample, in order to provide condition for electric dissolution when the DC power supply was switched on. The best results were achieved by using a 1.5 mol l-1 nitric acid solution as electrolyte and a 2.5 A current intensity. The procedure presented a good performance characterized by a relative standard deviation better than < 5% (n=5) and a sample throughput of 180 determinations per hour for Cu, Zn and Pb. Results were in agreement with those obtained by conventional acid dissolution (99% confidence level).

A flow system based on multicommutation and binary sampling process was developed to implement the sample zone trapping technique in order to increase the spectrophotometric analytical range and to improve sensitivity. The flow network was designed with active devices in order to provide facilities to determine sequentialy analyte with a wide concentration range, employing a single pumping channel to propel sample and reagents solutions. The procedure was employed to determine ortophosphate ions in water samples of river and waste. Profitable features such as an analytical throughput of 60 samples determination per hour, relative standard deviation (r.s.d.) of 2% (n = 6) for a typical sample with concentration of 2.78 mg/L were achieved. By applying the paired t-test no significant difference at 95% confidence level was observed between the results obtained with the proposed system and those of the usual flow injection system.