Determination of tellurium in urine by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry with derivative signal processing Original Research Article

A new method has been developed for the determination of tellurium in urine by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry with derivative signal processing (D-HGAAS). The effects of several parameters on the derivative absorbance values were investigated and the working conditions were optimized. The characteristic concentration (gives a derivative absorbance of 0.0044) and the detection limit (3σ) for tellurium were 0.042 and 0.26 μg l−1, respectively, 52 and 26 times better than those of conventional HGAAS. The proposed method had been applied to the determination of tellurium in urine samples from a small population of normal individuals with a recovery range of 89–98%.