The plenary lecture will highlight biogeochemistry from the prospective of an environmental analytical chemists. It will give an introduction that the molecular form of an element is important to understand and describe processes involving trace elements in the environment. Aspects of non-targeted analysis including de-novo identification and quantification without molecular standards will be covered in contrast for larger sample throughput analysis.

Using mass balance approaches it be illustrated that often not only one analytical technique is necessary to determine all elemental species from one element but rather a whole range of complimentary instrumentations. In this truly metallomics approach it is often necessary to consider also the formation of particulate element species. Not only is the proportion of the elemental species but rather the size of these particles important for any prediction how the elements would behave in the environment.

Using a series of case studies it will highlight the use of a range of analytical methods, from HPLC-ICPMS simultaneously coupled to ESI-MS, ICP-TOF-MS, AF4-UV-MALS-ICPMS and imaging techniques such as LA-ICPMS, XRF and techniques for stoichiometric determination of particles such as single particle ICP-TOF-MS.