Abstract :
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 (3sigms) for tellurium were 0.042 and 0.26µgl1, 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%.
