A novel gas liquid separator for direct sampling analysis of ultratrace arsenic in blood sample by hydride generation in-situ dielectric barrier discharge atomic fluorescence spectrometry

Abstract

A novel direct sampling (DS-HG) system consisting of an enlarged gas liquid separator (GLS) coupled with a foam breaker was firstly utilized for the in-situ dielectric barrier discharge atomic fluorescence spectrometer (DBD-AFS). After direct dilution using 5% HCl (v:v), a prepared blood sample was introduced into the DS-HG with a UV digestion unit, of which arsenic hydrides directly generated from sample under 5% HCl (v:v) and 5 g/L KBH4 in 1.5 g/L KOH. Herein, the newly designed DS-HG is capable of effectively eliminating foam generation deriving from protein in blood sample. Then, arsenic hydrides were trapped by 11 kV discharging at 110 mL/min air, and released by 13 kV at 180 mL/min H2 orderly. Under the optimized conditions, the linearity ranged from 0.05 to 50 ng/mL with a regression coefficient (R2) = 0.996. The method detection limit (LOD) was 7 pg arsenic (0.14 ng/mL), and relative standard deviation (RSD) of 10 repeated measurements for a real blood sample was 4.2%, indicating a good precision. The spiked recoveries for real samples were in the range of 97%–102%. Furthermore, arsenic presence in real blood samples measured by the proposed method were consistent (P > 0.05) with the microwave digestion ICP-MS. The whole analytical time can be controlled within 8 min including sample dilution. As a matter of fact, it is a favorable progress for DBD technique to eliminate matrix interferences of real samples based on the gas phase enrichment (GPE) principle, with advantages such as excellent sensitivity, digestion-free, fast and simple operation. Thus, the recommended DS-HG-in-situ DBD-AFS are suitable to the fast analysis of ultratrace arsenic in blood samples to protect human's health.