THE DETERMINATION OF SE BY FLOW-INJECTION HYDRIDE GENERATION ICP-OES USING ANION-EXCHANGE FOR ONLINE REMOVAL OF COPPER

Selenium was determined in samples with a high copper concentration by hydride generation-inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectr ometry (HG-ICP-OES) in combination with flow injection (FI) on-line co pper separation. The anion-exchange separation method using hydrochlor ic acid was applied to the separation of selenium from copper. The cop per-chlorocomplexes were adsorbed on an anion-exchange (Dowex 1X-8) mi cro-column (3.0 mm i.d. x 50.0 mm bed length), while the analyte was i ntroduced to the hydride generation system. After removal of the coppe r, a 700-mu L sample was injected into the water carrier stream contai ning hydrochloric acid and sodium tetrahydroborate to generate the cor responding selenium hydride. The Limit of detection was 0.3 ng/mL with a relative standard deviation of 2% for 20 ng/mL selenium. The applic ation of the method on two copper metal reference materials (MBH) demo nstrated that the results were comparable to certified values.