Comparison of four digestion methods for the determination of selenium in bovine liver by hydride generation and atomic-absorption spectrometry in a flow system

A flow system for hydride generation and atomic-absorption spectrometry is described, and the results from the optimization of the equipment for selenium determination are reported. For a sample volume of 0.6 ml the limit of detection for selenium was 0.1 mug l . and the imprecision less than 1% RSD at the 10-mug l . level. Four digestion procedures for selenium in bovine liver have been tested. All procedures gave concordant results, provided that the standard-additions method was used. The accuracies of the overall analytical procedures were estimated by comparison with results from neutron-activation analysis and analysis of NBS Bovine Liver, No. 1577. These comparisons proved that the accuracies of the procedures described in this paper are good.