Determination of palladium by flame atomic absorption spectrometry combined on-line with flow injection preconcentration using a micro-column packed with activated carbon fibre

The versatility of flow injection as a procedure for enhancing the performance of atomic spectrometry is demonstrated by the on-line separation and preconcentration of analyte ions of interest for methods employing atomic spectrometric measurements. In this paper, a sensitive method for the determination of palladium by flame atomic absorption spectrometry associated on-line with the flow injection technique has been developed. A flow system comprising a micro-column packed with activated carbon fibre was used for the concentration of palladium. In order to further enhance the performance of the analysis a new manifold with an additional column has been designed to increase the sensitivity by doubling the analytical signals. The method is sensitive and easily operating with a sampling rate of 15-20/h. The detection limit of this method is 0.3 ng/ml in standard solution and the precision is 3.9% relative standard deviation at 50 ng/ml. Recoveries of palladium in spiked solutions are 103-107%.