A novel analytical system involving hydride generation and gold-coated W-coil trapping atomic absorption spectrometry for selenium determination at ng l −1 level

A novel analytical technique was developed where gaseous hydrogen selenide formed by sodium tetrahydroborate reduction is transported to and trapped on a resistively heated gold-coated W-coil atom trap for in situ preconcentration. Gold coating on W-coil was prepared by using an organic solution of Au. The atom trap is held at 165 °C during the collection stage and is heated up to 675 °C for revolatilization; analyte species formed are transported to an externally heated quartz T-tube where the atomization takes place and the transient signal is obtained. The carrier gas consisted of 112.5 ml min −1 Ar with 75 ml min −1 H 2 during the collection step and 112.5 ml min −1 Ar with 450 ml min −1 H 2 in the revolatilization step. The half width of the transient signal obtained is less than 0.5 s. The RSD for the measurements was found to be 3.9% ( n = 11) for 0.10 µg l −1 Se using peak height measurements.