FAST FURNACE DETERMINATIONS OF ALUMINUM AND IRON IN BONE AND SOFT-TISSUES

A fast method for Zeeman graphite furnace AAS was developed for the determination of Al and Fe in bone and soft tissues. No pyrolysis step and no modifier was used. The analytical time was reduced to less than 1 min per determination with no loss of analytical precision and accuracy. A simple HNO3 digestion resulted in clear solutions which could be quantified with pure aqueous standards. The analytical performance of the Al determination in bone and soft tissues was considerably improved by using the STPF technique and a residual problem was solved by simply pretreating a L'vov platform with a bone digestate. For the determination of Fe, the use of HNO3 was required to ensure highest accuracy.