Simultaneous determination of lead, nickel, tin and copper in aluminium-base alloys using slurry sampling by electrical discharge and multielement ETAAS

The simultaneous multielement determination of Pb, Sn, Ni and Cu in aluminium alloys by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) was performed by a quick method using slurry sampling. The metallic colloidal slurries were obtained by an electrical discharge operated in liquid medium. In this work, the effects of aluminium were evaluated and the results show that it causes a strong retention of Pb, Ni and Cu at low pyrolysis temperatures which is overcome by employing high pyrolysis temperatures. Aluminium also significantly improves the thermal stabilisation of Pb and Sn, it being possible to reach pyrolysis temperatures of 1100 and 1300 degreesC, respectively. Such stabilisation indicates that the performance of aluminium as a matrix modifier for Pb is better than that obtained using phosphate and magnesium nitrate without substantial changes of the figures of merit. The effects of aluminium on the atomisation characteristics of the elements and those coming from the simultaneous multielement determination on the figures of merit of the elements are also discussed. In this work, a calibration procedure involving a matrix matching method with aqueous aluminium standards is proposed as a simple and efficient way to solve the inconveniences originated by the aluminium matrix. The proposed method was applied to the simultaneous multielement determination of several aluminium-base alloy standards giving results well within the recommended values. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.