Flow injection analysis system coupled with ICP-EOS for determination of some metallic elements in drinking water

The European Drinking Water Directive (98/83IEC), transposed in Romanian Legislation as Low 458/2002, amended by Low 31112004, imposes the limit of concentration for metallic elements in water intended
for human consumption. The toxic metals arsenic and selenium are among these elements and the limit value is 10 µg/L. In the paper there are presented the working conditions for determination of As and Se from drinking water using modern techniques based on the flow injection hydride generation with the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (FIAS-ICP-EOS). The analyses were performed on Optima 5300 DV Perkin Elmer equipment with FlAS 400 Flow Injection System, Perkin Elmer type. For the hydride generation two types of solution were used: 10% (v/v) HCI as a carrier solution and 0.2 % NaBH, in 0.05%NaOH solution as a reducing agent. The treatment step ofthe samples and standard solutions consisted in reducing with mixed solutions of KI and ascorbic acid in acidic condition (HCl) for As and only with HCI and high temperature for Se. The paper contains the characteristic parameters of the methods, such as: low detection limit, quantification limit, repeatability, precision, recovery, which were evaluated using Certified Reference Materials for each element.