DEVELOPMENT OF A PROCEDURE FOR THE DETERMINATION OF CHROMIUM IN SAMPLES OF URINE AND SERUM BY NEUTRON-ACTIVATION ANALYSIS

Since the mid-fifties the possibility of a causal relationship between deficient chromium and insulin metabolism and the manifestation of ce rtain varieties of diabetes mellitus has been presumed. The determinat ion of the chromium status under pathophysiological conditions may be helpful for the study of this problem. For these purposes an analytica l procedure as reference system was developed which allows the determi nation of chromium in biological matrices down to the concentration of 0.03 ng/ml. It is based on NAA and is used in the framework of a comm only used procedure based on GF-AAS. For its application blood and uri ne samples are freeze-dried and irradiated. After wet digestion with H NO3 in a microwave combustion system chromium is separated tor measure ment from the matrix nuclides with the help of the ion-exchanger Celle x-P. The individual steps of the procedure were evaluated by means of tracer experiments.