A new approach for the determination of silicon in airborne particulate matter using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

Advanced instrumental approaches for chemical characterization of indoor particulate matter

“…[102] Nevertheless, since these filters are extremely resistant to dissolution if a sample preparation step is required, e.g., as in the case of a conventional inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis procedure, then quartz fiber filters or cellulose filters (cellulose nitrate filters or mixed cellulose ester membranes) are preferably employed. [103,104] The elemental quantification is mostly performed by techniques that can be classified into three main groups: atomic spectrometric techniques, X-ray methods, and activation analysis. Atomic spectrometry, and especially wet chemical analysis via ICP-MS (trace elements) and ICP-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES, for major elements and specific trace ones) combined with different types of digestion, has become one of the most applied techniques for the elemental characterization of airborne PM in the last two decades.…”

Silicon speciation by hyphenated techniques for environmental, biological and industrial issues: A review

“…36 More recently, Mukhtar and Limbeck developed an accurate procedure for trace silicon detection in solid environmental samples such as soils or airborne particulate matter using GFAAS. 88 Based on a preliminary treatment of samples leading to mineralization, and with the use of 20 mL sample injection volume, an instrumental LOD of 52 mg L À1 was obtained, which translated to method detection limits of approximately 0.52 mg m À3 when considering collected air volumes. 88 AAS is also applied in medical fields in order to measure concentrations in tissues, plasma and human blood exposed to breast implants.…”

“…88 Based on a preliminary treatment of samples leading to mineralization, and with the use of 20 mL sample injection volume, an instrumental LOD of 52 mg L À1 was obtained, which translated to method detection limits of approximately 0.52 mg m À3 when considering collected air volumes. 88 AAS is also applied in medical fields in order to measure concentrations in tissues, plasma and human blood exposed to breast implants. 89 Indeed, the concentration of Si in blood of women with silicone gel-filled breast implants was found to be double (33.5/17.1 mg L À1 ) that a women with no implants.…”

“…81 Nevertheless, problems related to the formation of thermally stable silicon carbide (SiC (s) ) and volatile SiO (s) during pyrolysis by GFAAS can occur. 81,[98][99][100] These constraints can be resolved by using chemical modifiers 83,101,102 or treated Zr tubes 88 to avoid analyte reactions with graphite.…”

“…A significant enhancement of detection limits for silicon can be obtained by replacing OES for MS. 70 Indeed, the performance of ICP-MS allows the detection of very low concentrations levels (sub-ng L À1 ) in environmental, biological, petroleum products and in industrial samples. However, molecular interferences can also occur especially for silicon at m/z 28 ( 12 C 16 O + and 14 N 2 + ) but this problem can be solved with the use of collision-reaction cell 87,88,120 or also by using a HR-ICP-MS detection. 121 A procedure using a chromatographic purification coupled to multi collector (MC) ICP-MS has been described to enable dissolved silicon measurement in natural waters.…”