Determination of traces of silver in copper by direct Zeeman graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

Summary A method was developed to determine traces of silver in copper by direct Zeeman graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (ZAAS) on solid samples. The system is calibrated using quantitatively doped copper, whose blank silver content is determined using an iterative process. The method has been applied to the analysis of several candidate reference materials. Relative standard deviations of 2 to 5% are obtained in the range 1 to 12 g·g^–1. Furthermore, it was also applied to assess the homogeneity of a neutron dosimetry candidate reference material.