ICP-MS multielement determination in fly ash after microwave-assisted digestion of samples

A microwave assisted digestion procedure has been developed for dissolution of fly ash samples prior to the inductively coupled plasma-mass spectromet ric determination of their elemental composition. The developed methodology was validated by carrying out the analysis of two high-silicate containing reference materials (CRM 134R sewage amended soil and NIES JR 1 rock) and by means of the comparison between results found by microwave-assisted dige stion and ICP-MS of fly ash samples with those found by neutron activation analysis (NAA) for Sb, Cs, Cr, Co, Fe, U and Zn determination. The method d eveloped can be recommended for routine multielement analysis of fly ash. ( C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.