Microwave acid digestion and preconcentration neutron activation analysis of biological and diet samples for iodine

A simple preconcentration neutron activation analysis (PNAA) method has been developed for the determination of low levels of iodine in biological and nutritional materials. The method involves dissolution of the samples by microwave digestion in the presence of acids in closed Teflon bombs and preconcentration of total iodine, after reduction to iodide with hydrazine sulfate, by coprecipitation with bismuth sulfide. The effects of different factors such as acidity, time for complete precipitation, and concentrations of bismuth, sulfide, and diverse ions on the quantitative recovery of iodide have been studied. The absolute detection limit of the PNAA method is 5 ng of iodine. Precision of measurement, expressed in terms of relative standard deviation, is about 5% at 100 ppb and 10% at 20 ppb levels of iodine. The PNAA method has been applied to several biological reference materials and total diet samples.