Combined electrothermally heated quartz tube-flame atomiser for the hydride generation non-dispersive atomic fluorescence determination of selenium

Abstract

A hybrid atomiser of simple design has been tested for the determination of selenium using batch hydride generation and non-dispersive atomic fluorescence detection. The atomiser consists of a simple electrothermally heated quartz tube to which the gases evolved during the tetrahydroborate reduction are transported. At the gas outlet of the atomiser an argon-hydrogen mini-flame ignites spontaneously due to the hydrogen present in these gases, hence no external hydrogen supply is then necessary. An absolute detection limit of 27 pg of selenium (3σ of the blank), a calibration graph that is linear up to 300 ng of selenium and a precision of 2% for 2.5 ng of selenium (n= 5) were obtained. The device was used for the determination of selenium in reference materials such as coal fly ash, sea water, fish muscle and fish liver tissues, giving results that agreed well with certified values.