ABSTRACT
Photochemical vapor generation (PVG) of Mo was accomplished using a 19 W high-efficiency flow-through photoreactor operating in a flow injection mode using 30-50% (w/v) formic acid as a reaction medium. The generated volatile product (most probably molybdenum hexacarbonyl) was directed by an argon carrier gas to a plastic gas-liquid separator and introduced into the spray chamber of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer for detection. Particular attention was paid to the determination of overall PVG efficiency relative to that for liquid nebulization. Utilizing a sample flow rate of 1.25 mL min-1, corresponding to an irradiation time of 38 s, PVG efficiencies in the range 46-66% were achieved. The efficiency could be further enhanced by the presence of mg L-1 added Fe3+ ions. A limit of detection of 1.2 ng L-1 and precision of 3% (RSD) at 250 ng L-1 were achieved. Interferences from inorganic anions likely to be encountered during analytical application to real samples (NO3-, Cl-, SO42-, NO2-, and ClO4-) were investigated in detail. The accuracy and applicability of this sensitive methodology was successfully verified by analysis of fresh water Standard Reference Material NIST 1643e, two seawater Certified Reference Materials (NASS-7 and CASS-6), and by analysis of two samples of commercial dietary supplements solubilized in formic acid.
ABSTRACT
This work is a comprehensive study on chemical generation of volatile species (VSG) of copper for analytical atomic spectrometry. VSG was carried out in a flow injection mode in a special arrangement of the generator. Atomization in a diffusion flame atomizer (DF) with atomic absorption spectrometry detection was mostly used for VSG optimization. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was utilized to investigate generation efficiencies and feasibility of VSG system for ultratrace analysis. Concentration of individual reagents, namely of nitric acid, sodium tetrahydroborate and various reaction modifiers, was optimized with respect to generation efficiency. Triton X-100 and Antifoam B were chosen as the best combination of the modifiers owing to sixfold increase in sensitivity, decrease of tailing of measured signals and long-term repeatability. The addition of 500 µg L-1 of Ag was found crucial to maintain identical generation efficiency at low concentrations of Cu. This phenomenon was ascribed to the change in the size of generated species. The release and generation efficiency were accurately determined as 56-58 and 31-32%, respectively. The contribution of co-generated aerosol to release and generation efficiency measured by means of Cs and Ba was found negligible, only 0.40 and 0.13%, respectively, which underlines highly efficient VSG of Cu. The nature of volatile species was investigated by various approaches. The results cannot provide the decisive evidence. However, experiments with the DF, ICP-MS and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicate that the generated species are not volatile in the true sense but that they are strongly associated with fine aerosol co-generated during VSG. Cu clusters or nanoparticles of very small size (< 10 nm) are presumed but the formation of metastable copper hydride cannot be conclusively excluded.
