Evaluation of a hydride generation-atomic fluorescence system for the determination of arsenic using a dielectric barrier discharge atomizer

A new atomizer based on atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma was specially designed for atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) in order to be applied to the measurement of arsenic. The characteristics of the DBD atomizer and the effects of different parameters (power, discharge gas, gas flow rate, and KBH₄ concentration) were discussed in the paper. The DBD atomizer shows the following features: (1) low operation temperature (between 44 and 70 °C, depending on the operation conditions); (2) low power consumption; (3) operation at atmospheric pressure. The detection limit of As(III) using hydride generation (HG) with the proposed DBD-AFS was 0.04 μg L⁻¹. The analytical results obtained by the present method for total arsenic in reference materials, orchard leaves (SRM 1571) and water samples GBW(E) 080390, agree well with the certified values. The present HG-DBD-AFS is more sensitive and reliable for the determination of arsenic. It is a very promising technique allowing for field arsenic analysis based on atomic spectrometry.