Low-temperature volatilization of Be acetylacetonate for sample introduction in ETV-ICP-AES

Structure and vibrational assignment of beryllium acetylacetonate

The structure of beryllium acetylacetonate, Be(acac)(2), was fully optimized at the B3LYP (using the 6-31G*, 6-311G*, and 6-311++G(3df,2p) basis sets), Hartree-Fock, and the Möller-Plesset (using the 6-31G* basis set) levels. The frequency and intensity of the vibrational bands of Be(acac)(2) and its 1,3,5-(13)C; 2,4-(13)C; 3-(2)H; 3-(2)H-2,4-(18)O derivatives were obtained at the B3LYP level using 6-311G* basis set. We also calculated the anharmonic frequencies at the B3LYP/6-311G* level of theory for Be(acac). The calculated frequencies are compared with the experimental Fourier transform IR and Raman spectra. All of the measured IR and Raman bands were interpreted in terms of the calculated vibrational modes. The scaled theoretical frequencies and the structural parameters are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. Analysis of the vibrational spectra indicates a strong coupling between the chelated ring modes. Four bands at the 1042, 826, 748, and 480cm(-1) are found to be mainly due to the metal-oxygen stretching motions.

Micellanized spectrophotometric method for the determination of beryllium using haematoxylin

A simple and sensitized spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amounts of beryllium has been described. The method is based on the formation of a ternary complex by the reaction of beryllium with haematoxylin in the presence of micellar medium (cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide). The ternary complex of beryllium has a maximum absorbance at 592 nm and showed an excellent sensitivity (molar absorption coefficient of 7.07 x 10(4)L mol(-1)cm(-1) and the Sandell's sensitivity being 1.27 x 10(-4) microg cm(-2)) and reproducibility (within-day precision: R.S.D.<or=0.36%, n=5, between-day precision: R.S.D.<or=0.65%, n=5). Linearity was achieved over the range 0.01-0.1 microg mL(-1) of beryllium with a correlation coefficient of 0.9999. The effect of foreign substances on the determination has been examined. The proposed procedure has been applied to the determination of beryllium in water samples.

Hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction prior to low-temperature electrothermal vaporization ICP-MS for trace element analysis in environmental and biological samples

A new method of hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction (HF-LPME) prior to electrothermal vaporization (ETV) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) determination of trace Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, Hg, Pb and Bi, based on gaseous compounds introduction into the plasma as their diethyldithiocarbmate (DDTC) chelates, was developed. The use of the reagent DDTC as chemical modifier could not only enhance the analytical signals, but also decrease the vaporization temperature. At a temperature of 1300 degrees C, trace Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, Hg, Pb and Bi can be vaporized completely into the ICP. The factors affecting the formation of the chelates and their vaporization behaviors were investigated in detail, and the microextraction conditions were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limits of the proposed method were 12.4, 28.7, 7.9, 4.5, 3.3, 4.8 and 1.6 pg ml(-1) for Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, Hg, Pb and Bi, respectively. Enrichment factors of 305, 284, 24, 29, 20, 73 and 43 could be achieved within 15 min of extraction time, and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) for the seven determinations of 0.5 ng ml(-1) of target analytes were 8.8, 6.9, 7.1, 9.4, 10.2, 6.1 and 10.8%, respectively. The newly developed method has been applied to the determination of trace Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, Hg, Pb and Bi in environmental water and human serum samples, and the recoveries for the spiked samples were in the range of 88-116%. In order to validate this method, two certified reference materials, GBW08501 peach leaves and GBW(E)080040 seawater, were analyzed, and the determined values were in good agreement with the certified values.