Iron is an important nutrient essential for plants and critical for human health. The state-of-the art of methods for iron speciation in cereal grains and plant fluids is critically reviewed. Particular attention is given to the latest developments in the coupling of HPLC with the parallel ICP MS and electrospray ionization (ESI) MS/MS detection, usually QTOF MS or Q-Orbitrap MS, for the identification and quantification of iron species. The coupled techniques allow the direct microanalysis of plant intracellular fluids (xylem and phloem) and complement X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES and EXAFS). The increasing resolution and sensitivity of electrospray mass spectrometers and emergence of software allowing extraction of iron specific data from large chromatographic data sets are responsible for the growing role of electrospray MS/MS in speciation studies. The use of stable isotopes for the probing of the reactivity and stability of endogenous metal complexes and quantitative analysis are rising in importance.

铁是植物必需的重要营养素，对人体健康至关重要。对谷物和植物液中铁的形态分析方法的最新进展进行了严格的审查。特别关注HPLC与并行ICP MS和电喷雾电离（ESI）MS / MS检测（通常为QTOF MS或Q-Orbitrap MS）耦合用于鉴定和定量铁种类的最新进展。耦合技术可以直接对植物细胞内液（木质部和韧皮部）进行微量分析，并可以补充X射线吸收光谱（XANES和EXAFS）。电喷雾质谱仪的分辨率和灵敏度的提高以及允许从大型色谱数据集中提取铁特定数据的软件的出现，是电喷雾MS / MS在物种研究中日益重要的作用。使用稳定同位素探测内源金属络合物的反应性和稳定性以及进行定量分析的重要性日益提高。