Biomonitoring of Metal Deposition in the Vicinity of Eregli Steel Plant in Turkey

Determination of As, Cd, Cu, Hg and Pb in biological samples by modern electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

“…Microwave assisted processes are particularly important when the determination of As and Hg is targeted as complete mineralization of the sample can be achieved at low temperature preventing losses of these elements. Nitric acid is the most widely used [4,[8][9][10]12,[15][16][17]20,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]66] and the addition of H 2 O 2 increases its oxidization power [2,7,13,22,. Mixtures of nitric acid with other acids have also been favored [13,14,22,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75].…”

“…However, if inadequate equipment is used to conduct the acid digestion, unacceptable losses of analytes such as As and Hg may arise by volatilization. The widespread use of microwave assisted acid digestion with elevated pressure and temperature control has alleviated these problems [2,4,[7][8][9][10][12][13][14]17,20,[27][28][29]32,[35][36][37][38]41,43,[45][46][47][48][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][59][60][61][62][64][65][66]69,[71][72][73]76] and enabled the use of large sample masses (1-2 g) without the danger of vessel rupture and with a minimal chance for contamination. Microwave assisted processes are particularly important when the determination of As and Hg is targeted as complete mineralization of the sample can be achieved at low temperature preventing losses of these elements.…”

“…Matrix destruction based on oxidation with concentrated acids is the most widely used approach for biological samples because of its efficiency [1][2][3][4][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]20, (Table 1) in liberating the elements of interest from the molecular structures. Analyses of the resultant digest by ETAAS have several advantages: ease of manipulating the analyte concentrations to be in the optimum range of detection, availability of appropriate calibration standards and the use of less sophisticated instrumentation.…”

“…Additionally, the sample matrix may produce volatile or stable molecule forms of the analyte and influences the absorption signal. Nevertheless, differences in atomization efficiencies between the analyte in samples and in calibration standard solutions can be avoided and the analytical accuracy checked by using a reference standard with a similar matrix to that of the samples [1][2][3][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], or by comparing the slopes derived from aqueous standards with those from certified reference standards [1,6]. More recently, several improvements in ETAAS spectrometers have also contributed to partially or totally solving these problems and by facilitating direct analyses of solids thereby enhancing the capacity of ETAAS to compete with atomic emission spectrometry in terms of sensitivity and detection limits, while maintaining the current advantages of absorption techniques, such as their low cost.…”

“…Human activities release trace elements into the environment in chemical forms that may increase their bioavailability. Powerful analytical methods are indispensable for evaluating the impact of trace elements in studies of food toxicity [1][2][3][4][5], human health risk assessment [6,7] and environmental pollution by monitoring bioaccumulation in mosses [8][9][10], mushrooms [11], lichens [12,13], vascular plants [14][15][16] and animals [17,18] and to follow the processes of phyto-remediation of polluted soils [19]. Knowledge of plant bio-accumulators is also useful for evaluating the effects of trace elements on a geographic and time scale, providing information on trace element distributions, establishing their transport directions and localizing the emission sites [20,21].…”