Determination of arsenic, mercury, selenium, thallium, tin and bismuth in environmental materials by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry

This paper deals with spectral interference in radial—viewing Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry in the determination of As, Hg, Se, Tl, Sn and Bi in environmental materials. The spectral interferences, in the presence of Al, Ca, Mg, Fe and Ti as matrix constituents, around the prominent lines of analytes with wavelengths below 200 nm and up to 320 nm, were studied. The Q-concept was applied for quantification of spectral interferences in the presence of multi-component environmental matrix. These data were used for both quantitative line selection and calculation of the true detection limits by the “best” analysis lines. The detection limits obtained in the present paper varied from 0.3 to 0.9 μg g−1.