DETERMINATION OF VANADIUM AND TITANIUM IN STEEL BY INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA ATOMIC EMISSION-SPECTROMETRY WITH MODIFIED USE OF A TUNGSTEN BOAT FURNACE ATOMIZER FOR ATOMIC-ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY

For electrothermal sample introduction, a commercially available tungsten boat atomizer for atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) was transferred to a vaporizer for inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The modification retained as much of the original design of the atomizer as possible, so that the apparatus could be switched easily between conventional tungsten boat furnace (TBF)-AAS and TBF-ICP-AES. By using this system, a procedure for the determination of vanadium and titanium in steel was investigated. The detection limits (S/N=3) of vanadium and titanium were 3.9 and 1.5 ng ml-1, respectively. The relative standard deviations for five replicate determinations were ca. 3% for both elements. The calibration graphs were linear up to 100 μg ml-1 vanadium(V) and 10 μg ml-1 titanium(IV). Results of analyses of some low-alloy steel samples are given. © 1990.