Determination of lead in aerosol samples collected on glass fiber filters by an improved atomic absorption spectrometry method

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents a simple, reliable, economical, safe, accurate and reproducible method for atmospheric aerosol lead determination in glass fiber filters, consisting on an acid digestion procedure and atomic absorption spectrometry quantification. The acid digestion is accelerated by the use of a microwave oven with capped Teflon PFA vessels, and a two steps power and time program. The mixture of 10 mL HNO3 and 1 mL HF was selected between many tries, for both economic and environmental reasons. The use of direct standards for quantification is proposed instead of added standards on filters, using background correction (deuterium lamp). The filter lead content quantification was carried out through blank analyses. Lead determinations were carried out then in 2629 samples of atmospheric aerosol at three sampling points in the city of Cartagena (Spain), from 1990 to 1994. We present the annual average of these values for each year and sampling location.

Determination of selected heavy metals in air samples from the northern part of Jordan

“…Atomic absorption spectroscopy is the main technique used for the analysis of heavy metals in air samples, because of its selectivity, sensitivity, reproducibility, wide dynamic concentration range, and its low cost (Silvia et al 2004;Vasconcelos and Tavares 1997;Khillare et al 2004;Moreno-Grau et al 1997Bilos et al 2001;Shevchenko et al 2003;Jimmy et al 2001).…”

Determination of Select Heavy Metals in Air Samples from Aurangabad City

“…Several heavy metals have been determined in air samples in different countries such as Brazil (Silvia et al 2004), Denmark (Karl et al 2002, Portugal (Vasconcelos and Tavares 1997), India (Khillare et al 2004), Spain (Moreno-Grau et al 1997, 2000Mateu et al 1999), Egypt (Abdel-Shafy et al 1992), and Russia (Drobyshev and Emelina 2001), not to mention national and international continuous monitoring programs for regulatory purposes like the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program. Various studies have been reported in the literature regarding heavy metal concentrations in air within Indian cities (Pandit et al 2013;Jha 2010;Singh et al 2008;Dubey et al 2012;Gupta and Karar 2006).…”

Microwave-Assisted Vapor-Phase Acid Digestion of Cellulose Nitrate Filters for Elemental Analysis of Airborne Dust Samples

“…The application of conventional sample preparation techniques such as wet digestion in concentrated mineral acids or dry ashing in an oxygen atmosphere followed by chemical treatment results in clear solutions which can be analyzed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (8,9), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) atomic emission (10) and mass spectrometry (11), or total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectrometry (12)(13)(14). To minimize contamination and losses of volatile elements, and to accelerate the digestion process, microwave-assisted digestion in sealed polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) bombs is highly recommended (15)(16)(17)(18).…”