Abstract

A low temperature electrothermal vaporization inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ETV-ICP-AES) method for the determination of palladium, by using sample introduction of gaseous palladium oxinate, was developed. The thermally stable palladium oxinate was formed and vaporized at a temperature of 900 °C from the graphite furnace. The main factors affecting the vaporization behavior of the analyte were investigated in detail. The detection limit of palladium for this method was 50 pg, and the relative standard deviation (RSD) for 0.2 µg ml⁻¹ palladium was 4.7% (n = 8). Compared with conventional ETV-ICP-AES, the analytical sensitivity of this method was improved by one order of magnitude. The proposed method was applied to the determination of trace palladium in geological samples with satisfactory results.