Direct determination of lead in polluted sea water by carbon-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

A simple and rapid method is described for the direct determination of lead in polluted sea water by carbon furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Filtered sea water is diluted (1+1) with'deionised distilled water and ammonium nitrate is added to act as a matrix modifier. Aliquots of this mixture are injected into a tantalum-coated graphite tube in a HGA-2200 furnace atomiser operated under gas-stop conditions. With the standard addi- tion method, a detection limit (20) of 1 μg Pb 1^-1 is achieved. Good agreement between the proposed method and results obtained by anodic stripping voltammetry was achieved for samples taken from the Firth of Forth.