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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Clean Sampling and Analysis of River and Estuarine Waters for Trace Metal Studies
Published on: July 1, 2016
Determination of trace metals in water using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry
H Watanabe1, S Berman, D S Russell
1Division of Chemistry, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
A simple, rapid and accurate method for water analysis is proposed. The analytical procedure for the determination of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Cd, As, Pb and Se in water in concentrations as low as a few ppM involves precipitation with a carrier of the metals by diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) or 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN) and filitration through a Millipore filter. The precipitates collected on the filter disc are examined by X-ray fluorescence analysis. PAN is excellent for the determination of several metal ions at the ppM level, and DDTC can be used with tartrate as a masking agent if water samples contain large amounts of iron(III).
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