The determination of antimony and arsenic concentrations in fly ash by hydride generation inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry

Hydride generation inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (HG-ICP-OES) was used in the determination of As and Sb concentrations in fly ash samples. The effect of sample pre-treatment reagents and measurement parameters used for hydride generation was evaluated. Due to memory effects observed, the appropriate read delay time was adjusted to 60 s resulting in RSDs 0.6% and 2.3% for As and Sb, respectively. The most suitable volumes of pre-reduction reagents for 10 mL of sample were 4 mL of KI/ascorbic acid (5%) and 6 mL of HCl (conc.). The determination of Sb was significantly interfered by HF, but the interference could be eliminated by adding 2 mL of saturated boric acid and heating the samples to 60 °C at least 45 min. The accuracy of the method was studied by analyses of SRM 1633b and two fly ash samples with the recovery test of added As and Sb. As high a recovery as 96% for SRM 1633b was reached for As using 193.696 nm with two-step ultrasound-assisted digestion. A recovery rate of 103% was obtained for Sb using 217.582 nm and the pre-reduction method with the addition of 2 mL of saturated boric acid and heating. The quantification limits for the determination of As and Sb in the fly ash samples using two-step ultrasound-assisted digestion followed with HG-ICP-OES were 0.89 and 1.37 mg kg−1, respectively.