Simultaneous Determination of As, Bi, Sb, Se, Te, Hg, Pb and Sn by Small-Sized Electrothermal Vaporization...

The simultaneous determination of chemical vapor-generating elements involving derivatization is difficult even by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry or mass spectrometry. This study proposes a new direct liquid microsampling method for the simultaneous determination of As, Bi, Se, Te, Hg, Pb, and Sn, using a fully miniaturized set-up based on electrothermal vaporization capacitively coupled plasma microtorch optical emission spectrometry. The method is cost-effective, free from non-spectral interference, and easy to run by avoiding derivatization. The method involves the vaporization of analytes from the 10 µL sample and recording of episodic spectra generated in low-power (15 W) and low-Ar consumption (150 mL min^-1) plasma microtorch interfaced with low-resolution microspectrometers. Selective vaporization at 1300 °C ensured the avoidance of non-spectral effects and allowed the use of external calibration. Several spectral lines for each element even in the range 180-210 nm could be selected. Generally, this spectral range is examined with large-scale instrumentation. Even in the absence of derivatization, the obtained detection limits were low (0.02-0.75 mg kg^-1) and allowed analysis of environmental samples, such as cave and river sediments. The recovery was in the range of 86-116%, and the accuracy was better than 10%. The method is of general interest and could be implemented on any miniaturized or classical laboratory spectrometric instrumentation.