Industrial analysis: metals, chemicals and advanced materials

Abstract

This Atomic Spectrometry Update is the latest in an annual series appearing under the title ‘Industrial Analysis'. This year there have been several changes to the structure of the review. Some rearrangement of the Petroleum and petroleum products section, and some refocusing of the Chemicals section, has taken place. Also the Semiconductor section has been given a wider remit and is now called Semiconductors and conduction materials. It is hoped that these changes will meet with the approval of regular readers of this review and the authors and review co-ordinator would appreciate any constructive comments that may come to mind.

In the area of organic and non-metal analysis there has been an increase in the use of indirect techniques for quantification of the organic compound of interest, i.e., the analysis of either complexed or inherent element by atomic spectrometry methods to give an estimation of the amount of organic substance. Also microwave digestion methodologies have been used in some interesting applications.

There has been a large increase in the number of publications and conference presentations in the area of high purity metal analysis, and not just for the precious metals. The papers covered in this review concentrate on both the analysis of purity (difficult with respect to standards) and trace impurities (difficult with respect to matrix effects and sensitivity).

Not much real novel work was encountered in the fields of the advanced materials sections and the avid reader will notice that these sections may be slightly shorter than other years, especially the Ceramics and refractories section, although the systematic analysis of REEs by Chinese workers continues.

In general, improvements in sample preparation and instrument sensitivity have contributed most to the work covered by this year's review, especially in the nuclear and semiconductor industries, where the advances in ICP-MS instrumentation are now yielding sub-femtogram detection limits without preconcentration steps. If only we all could work with dark current blanks.