Flame atomic absorption spectrometric determination of copper-8-quinolinolate anti-stain on treated lumber surfaces

Abstract

A procedure for the determination of copper-8-quinolinolate (Cu-8) anti-stain on the surface of treated lumber is presented. Triplicate samples of wood were dissolved in less than 10 min by sealed vessel microwave digestion. Minimum detectable anti-stain coverage was determined to be 0.36 µg of Cu-8 per cm²(C_L, k= 3 Cu) with an instrument detection limit of 0.0015 µg ml^–1 of Cu. The precision of the method was 6.0 and 3.9% relative standard deviation for interior (core) and exterior (treated) wood, respectively. Atomic absorption spectrometric detection of copper was found to be free from matrix interferences and the proposed method recovered 100% of the copper from National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material 1575 Pine Needles.