Direct analysis of Antarctic krill by slurry sampling: Determination of copper, iron, manganese and zinc by flame atomic absorption spectrometry

Slurry sampling in combination with flame atomic absorption spectrometry wa s employed for the direct determination of four essential trace elements, n amely Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in Antarctic krill. The effect of instrumental oper ating conditions and slurry sampling preparation on the analytical signal w as investigated. For the determination of Cu, Fe and Zn, samples were suspe nded in a solution containing 2 mel L-1 HNO3. In the case of Mn, 4 mel L-1 I HNO3 was necessary for the preparation of the slurry. The precision betwe en sample replicates was better than 5%. The method was applied to the dire ct determination of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in Antarctic krill samples using aque ous reference solutions to prepare the calibration curves. The results obta ined were in good agreement with those achieved by FAAS and ICP-AES after m icrowave-assisted wet digestion of the krill samples. The detection limits were 4.5, 1.0, 4.9 and 8.4 mu g L-1 for Cu, Zn, Mn and Fe, respectively.