Determination of platinum, palladium and rhodium in biological and environmental samples by low temperature electrothermal vaporization inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry with diethyldithiocarbamate as chemical modifier

A novel method for inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) determination of trace amounts of Pt(II), Pd(II) and Rh(III), based on gaseous compounds introduction into the plasma as their diethyldithiocarbamate complexes by electrothermal vaporization (ETV), was developed. At the temperature of 1100 degreesC, the trace amounts of Pt, Pd and Rh were vaporized into plasma. The factors affecting the formation of the chelates and their vaporization behaviors, such as ashing temperature and time, vaporization temperature and time, pH and the concentration of chelating reagents were studied in detail. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) (3sigma) of Pt, Pd and Rh for tested solutions were 5.4, 1.4 and 0.8 ng ml(-1), and for actual sample (auto-catalyst NIST SRM 2557) were 0.27, 0.07 and 0.04 mug g(-1) respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) for Pt, Pd and Rh were 1.4, 2.6 and 2.4% (C-pt = 0.5 mug ml(-1), C-Pd,C-Rh = 0.25 mug ml(-1), n = 7), respectively. The linear ranges of calibration graphs for Pt, Pd and Rh cover three orders of magnitude. Compared with conventional electrothermal vaporization technique, using the reagent of diethyl dithiocarbamate as chemical modifier could not only enhance the analytical sensitivities, but also reduce the vaporization temperature. By combination with a separation/preconcentration step, the proposed method had been successfully applied to the analysis of the artificial seawater, tap water and urine with recoveries ranging from 91 to 106%. The two certified reference material meager platinpalladium ore GBW 07293 and auto-catalyst NIST SRM 2557 was also analyzed for validation, and the determined values obtained were in good agreement with the certified values. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.