Alternative approaches to correct interferences in the determination of boron in shrimps by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

•New approaches were developed to cope with interferences of B determination by ETAAS•Ge was used as internal standard for the determination of B by simultaneous ETAAS•Citric acid was used during digestion and dilution of digested samples•Boron (added as boric acid) was determined in frozen shrimp samples

The aim of this study is to propose alternative techniques and methods in combination with the classical chemical modification to correct the major matrix interferences in the determination of boron in shrimps. The performance of an internal standard (Ge) for the determination of boron by the simultaneous multi-element atomic absorption spectrometry was tested. The use of internal standardization increased the recovery from 85.9% to 101% and allowed a simple correction of errors during sampling preparation and heating process. Furthermore, a new preparation procedure based on the use of citric acid during digestion and dilution steps improved the sensitivity of the method and decreased the limit of detection. Finally, a comparative study between the simultaneous multi-element atomic absorption spectrometry with a longitudinal Zeeman-effect background correction system, equipped with a transversely-heated graphite atomizer and the single element atomic absorption spectrometry with a D2 background correction system, equipped with an end-heated graphite atomizer was undertaken to investigate the different behavior of boron in both techniques. Different chemical modifiers for the determination of boron were tested with both techniques. Ni-citric acid and Ca were the optimal chemical modifiers when simultaneous multi-element atomic absorption spectrometry and single-element atomic absorption spectrometry were used, respectively. By using the single-element atomic absorption spectrometry, the calculated characteristic mass was 220 pg and the calculated limit of detection was 370 μg/kg. On the contrary, with simultaneous multi-element atomic absorption spectrometry, the characteristic mass was 2200 pg and the limit of detection was 5.5 mg/kg.