Simultaneous multielemental analysis of some environmental and biological samples by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

Hee, S. S.; Boyle, J. R.

doi:10.1021/ac00161a017

The Parr bomb technique is found to be the preferred acid digestion method for multielemental analysis by simultaneous inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) when compared with microwave and hot plate methods for many environmental and biological specimens, but especially for the latter. One digestion alone often did not produce quantitative results compared with a sequential digestion scheme. The digestions were then refined to be as similar as possible for the various substrates studied. The interference of carbon on As and Se had to be corrected at .gtoreq. 3000 .mu.g of C/mL in the analysis solution, and thus the C content had to be monitored to assess the efficiency of the digestions and to determine if interelemental correction for C presence was required. The C correction was adequate in the range 3000-10000 .mu.g of C/mL. The use of modified k values was demonstrated to provide accuracy and had to be used for ICP-AES spectrometers where background corrections were performed first for fixed channels. The results on Cincinnati soils and feces of Cincinnati children showed that Si and Ti were possible tracer elements for soil ingestion by the children.