Polystyrene film-coated glassware: a new means of reducing metal losses in trace metal speciation

A recently developed process for coating a glass surface with polystyrene (PS) film, by use of a simple chemical process has been used to reduce trace metal adsorption by cell components. The glass coating is a two-step procedure consisting of covalent attachment of vinyl-terminated PS to Si atoms on the glass surface then adsorption of PS from solution to create a stable PS film. To assess the quality of the coating we used anodic stripping voltammetry to study the adsorption of lead and cadmium ions in coated and untreated glass cells. In both short and long-term (24 h) experiments we observed that the amount of metal adsorbed was considerably less for the PS film-coated glass cell than for the uncoated cell. Further experiments showed that metal desorption is faster and metal contamination after cleaning is significantly lower for the coated cells. The PS film was, moreover, stable over a period of 6 months within the pH range 3.5–9.