Preconcentration of inorganic antimony(III) in environmental samples by PSTH-Dowex microcolumn and determination by FI-ETAAS

A flow injection on-line sorption preconcentration system has been synchronously coupled to an electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) system for the selective determination of trace amounts of Sb(III) in water, soil and plant. The determination was achieved by selective complexation and sorption of Sb(III) with [1,5-bis(2-pyridyl)-3-sulphophenyl methylene thiocarbonohydarzide (PSTH) immobilized on an anion-exchange resin (Dowex 1× 8-200)] at a wide range of pH, quantitative elution with 50 μl of 2 M HNO3 and subsequent ETAAS detection. ETAAS determination of the analyte was performed in parallel with the preconcentration of the next sample. Using a preconcentration time of 60 s and a sample loading flow rate of 2.8 ml min−1, an enhancement factor of 12 was obtained in comparison with direct injection of 50 μl aqueous solution, resulting in a sampling frequency of 31 samples h−1. The detection limit (3 s) was 2 μg l−1 and the precision was 3.1% (R.S.D.) for 11 replicate determinations at 10 μg l−1. The accuracy of the proposed method was demonstrated by analyzing one certified sample and different spiked samples.