Atomic-absorption studies on the determination of antimony, arsenic, bismuth, germanium, lead, selenium, tellurium and tin by utilising the generation of covalent hydrides

Abstract

A method for the determination of arsenic, bismuth, germanium, lead, antimony, selenium, tin and tellurium by means of hydride generation is described. The hydrides are generated by adding the acidified sample to dilute (1 per cent. m/V) sodium borohydride solution. The liberated hydrides are passed directly into a 17 cm long silica tube mounted in an air-acetylene flame. The advantages of the proposed system are its simplicity, high sensitivity, high speed of analysis and the fact that background correction facilities are not required.

The generation of plumbane for analytical purposes does not appear to have been reported previously.