Determination of beryllium in soils by means of flameless atomic absorption with zirconium-coated graphite tubes

Interlaboratory evaluation of an extraction and fluorescence method for the determination of trace beryllium in soils

“…Volunteer laboratories were requested to prepare calibration solutions and to set up their fluorometers as outlined in NIOSH method 9110 17 and/or ASTM D7202. 18 The laboratories were asked to follow the following sample preparation protocol: (1) add 50 ml of extraction solution to each 60 ml polypropylene bottle containing 0.5 g of soil sample; (2) cap each bottle, shake to ensure complete sample wetting, and then place into a laboratory oven and heat at 90 C for 40 h; (3) remove the samples from the oven and allow them to cool to room temperature; (4) take an aliquot (2-5 ml) of each extract and filter it through a nylon filter (0.45 mm pore size) using a 5 ml syringe; (5) for each sample extract, transfer the filtered aliquot into a 15 ml polypropylene centrifuge tube, cap the tube and store for analysis.…”

“…After preparing the samples, the participating laboratories were requested to perform analysis in accordance with the following steps: (1) pipette 100 ml of each filtered solution extract into a fluorescence cuvette, and to this add 1.9 ml of detection solution and mix well; (2) let the solution in each cuvette sit under quiescent conditions for two hours to allow for the solution to become colorless (yellowness may be observed initially due to the presence of iron, † which will precipitate out after a time period of two hours 9 ); (3) re-filter each solution using a 5 ml syringe and 0.45 mm nylon filter, and empty the contents into a clean fluorescence cuvette; (4) measure the fluorescence and determine the beryllium concentration of each sample by comparison with the calibration curve established previously; (5) for samples that are off-scale due to excessively high beryllium concentration levels, dilute each filtered sample extract and measure the fluorescence, accounting for the dilution factor.…”

“…Historically, techniques to dissolve soil samples for subsequent beryllium determination have involved hightemperature fluoride fusions 2,3 or digestions employing hydrofluoric acid. [4][5][6] Subsequent analytical determination of the extracted beryllium is usually carried out by atomic spectrometric methods such as electrothermal atomic absorption or inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. 7,8 However, less hazardous sample preparation techniques are desired and, to that end, recent work has demonstrated the efficacy of total beryllium extraction from geologic materials such as soils in dilute ammonium bifluoride, NH 4 HF 2 .…”

Graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry as a routine method for the quantification of beryllium in blood and serum

“…Beryllium is the 35 th most abundant element in the earth's crust, with an average of 6 mg kg -1 [ 1 ]. It has unique physical and chemical properties that improves the characteristics of alloys producing greater tensile strength, high electrical and thermal conductivity, along with good corrosion and fatigue resistance [ 2 ].…”