On the effect of catalyst status in the quantitative determination of platinum in Pt-Sn/MgO materials

The development of an analytical method for the determination of platinum i n MgO based Pt/Sn catalysts is described. Electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy (ETAAS) was chosen because of its high sensitivity and robustn ess against spectral interferences. All the sources of chemical interferenc es were statistically analyzed and corrections were adopted for the presenc e of magnesium oxide support. The effectiveness of different mineralization procedures was critically evaluated as a function of the chemical of the s olid catalyst. Microwave digestion allowed recovery of metal of 100% for al l the catalysts analyzed and exhibited significant better precision values than other digestion methods, which could nevertheless be utilized under pr oper conditions in selected cases.