Aerosol generation of As and Se hydrides using a new Flow Blurring® multiple nebulizer for sample introduction in inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry

Abstract

A new Flow Blurring® multiple nebulizer (FBMN) has been used for the efficient generation of As and Se hydrides directly into the aerosol formed inside the spray chamber before detection by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES). The FBMN allowed the hydride generation directly into the spray chamber without using any additional device either for solution and gas control or for gas phase separation. Synthetic solutions containing As and Se plus Ca, Mg and K were used for evaluating matrix effects and Ge was suggested as internal standard. Limits of detection of 2.7 and 5.8 μg L− 1 were obtained for As and Se, respectively, when keeping the nebulization gas flow rate at 0.60 L min− 1 and the liquid flow rate at 0.67 mL min− 1. The developed procedure was applied for spiked digests of food samples and quantitative recoveries were attained. The combination of FBMN, internal standard and hydride generation is a robust and simple approach for generating As and Se hydrides directly into the aerosol.