Current status of direct solid sampling for electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry - A critical review of the development between 1995 and 2005

The literature about direct solid sampling (SS) and slurry sampling atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) over the past decade has been surveyed critically. It became apparent that a very significant change had occurred, particularly in the relation between the two major techniques used for that purpose. In the 1990s, slurry sampling was typically considered the technique of choice, combining the significant advantages of the solid and the liquid sampling methods, at least in part because of the availability of a commercial accessory for automatic slurry sampling. The situation is completely inverted now, as the above accessory has been discontinued and rugged and reliable accessories for direct SS became available. Direct SS electrothermal (ET) AAS has been shown to provide the best limits of detection because of the absence of any dilution and a minimal risk of contamination. Calibration against aqueous standards appears to be feasible after careful program optimization. The absence of any significant sample handling makes SS ET AAS ideally suited for fast screening analyses. The introduction of high-resolution continuum source AAS appears to open additional attractive features for SS ET AAS because of the significantly simplified optimization of furnace programs and the visibility of the spectral environment, which makes it easy to avoid spectral interferences. New calibration strategies make a "dilution of samples unnecessary, which used to be one of the major limitations of SS ET AAS. Finally, direct SS analysis is an important contribution to clean chemistry, as practically no reagents are used.