DETERMINATION OF A TRACE AMOUNT OF BERYLLIUM IN WATER SAMPLES BY GRAPHITE-FURNACE ATOMIC-ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY AFTER PRECONCENTRATION AND SEPARATION AS A BERYLLIUM ACETYLACETONATE COMPLEX ON ACTIVATED CARBON

A rapid and simple preconcentration method by selective adsorption using activated carbon as an adsorbent and acetylacetone as a complexing agent is described for the determination of a trace amount of beryllium by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. The beryllium-acetylacetonate complex is adsorbed easily onto activated carbon at pH 8-10. The activated carbon which adsorbed the beryllium-acetylacetonate complex was separated and dispersed in pure water. The resulting suspension was introduced directly into the graphite furnace atomizer. The determination limit was 0.6 ng/L (SIN = 3), and the relative standard deviation at 0.25 mug/L was 3.0-4.0% (n = 6). Not only was there no interference from the major ions such as Na(I), K(I), Mg(II), Ca(II), Cl-, and SO42- in seawater but there was also no interference from other minor ions. The proposed method was applied to the determination of nanograms per milliliter levels of beryllium in seawater and rainwater.