Application of the Slurry Technique to the Determination of Selenium in Fish Samples by Electrothermal Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Abstract

A slurry technique was applied in the development of a sensitive and precise method for selenium determination in fish samples without sample pre-treatment. Several pyrolysis curves were investigated and different chemical modifiers were tested. Ammonium oxalate was used to improve the selectivity. Calibration within the range 2.5–25.0 µg l ^-1 Se was performed with aqueous standards. The detection limit was calculated as 0.33 µg l ^-1 and the RSD of the measurements was 5.9% for repeatability and 9.2% for reproducibility. The reliability of the entire procedure was confirmed by analysis of a standard reference material and by comparison with a microwave digestion procedure.