Matrix Digestion of Soil and Sediment Samples for Extraction of Lead,Cadmium and Antimony and Their Direct Determination by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry and Atomic Emission Spectrometry

An environmentally friendly and simple method has been developed for complete digestion of lead, cadmium and antimony from soil samples using a magnesium nitrate assisted dry ashing procedure. Statistical data for a series of experiments with standard reference materials are presented, and precision values are found to be comparable for inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and for inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. From a single digest solution all analytes are quantified without involving any pre-concentration routes. Inter-method comparison of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) shows that the probability of the results being different is less than 99%.