High-resolution gas chromatography with graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry as the detection system

Abstract

A high-resolution gas chromatography-graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (HRGC-GFAAS) system, using on-column injection and signal evaluation with a personal computer (PC), is described. The system affords high specificity and selectivity, combined with a low instrumental detection limit, e.g., 8 pg for tetramethyllead and 16 pg for butyltrimethyllead. The reproducibility and stability of the instrumentation are good, giving a relative standard deviation of 10% at the 100 ng ml^–1 level and a correlation coefficient of 0.998 for standard solutions of butyltrimethyllead.