Electrothermal atomisation atomic absorption spectrometric determination of silver, beryllium, calcium, iron, lead and tin in uranium without preliminary separation

Abstract

Electrothermal atomisation atomic absorption spectrometric methods have been developed for the direct determination of Ag, Be, Ca, Fe, Pb and Sn in uranyl nitrate solution. Using 5-µl sample aliquots containing 100 µg of uranium, the detection limits for the analytes vary between 0.1 and 25 p.p.m. (on a uranium mass basis). The precision of determinations at an intermediate concentration was calculated to be better than 9% RSD. Interference studies carried out include the effect of the build-up of uranium in the atomiser and the effect of concomitant and major impurities on the analyte absorbance. A measure of the high accuracy of the determinations can be inferred from the analysis of a set of NBL reference standards.