ATOMIC SPECTROMETRY UPDATE - CLINICAL AND BIOLOGICAL-MATERIALS, FOOD AND BEVERAGES

The writing team for the 1997 ASU was strengthened by the inclusion of Linda Owen, who drafted the test for the food and beverage section wi th guidance from her Norwich colleague, Helen Crews, In our last revie w we commented on the appearance at conferences of portable electrothe rmal atomic absorption spectrometers developed in the wake of renewed concern about environmental lead and children's health. We have now se en this work published and extended to include cadmium. It is intrigui ng to see the exploitation of some new technology to produce relativel y simple instrumentation and we await further developments in other ar eas, The interest in lead exposure has also prompted a number of repor ts on the use of X-ray fluorescence for in-vivo measurements, The tech nique was applied to the analysis of house paint about 20 years ago an d some attempts were made then to determine lead in bone. This last ye ar has seen a revival in this approach and the application to other me tals also, Sensitivity is such that lead can only be detected where th ere has been increased exposure, but in such circumstances interesting data have been reported. In addition to this work on lead the interes t in selenium continues to grow in both the clinical and foods areas. Procedures for speciation represent the main focus of attention but th ere have been new chemical modifiers for ETAAS described and the use o f hydride generation to avoid the isobaric interferences in ICP-MS. A different solution to these interferences is offered by high resolutio n ICP-MS, which is beginning to make a significant impact in the analy sis of biological materials.