Coupling of chemical vapor generation with atmospheric pressure glow discharge optical emission spectrometry generated in contact with flowing liquid electrodes for determination of Br in water samples

Abstract

Miniaturized atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) microplasma devices, operated in contact with a flowing liquid anode (FLA) or a flowing liquid cathode (FLC) and a He jet, were studied for the determination of Br by optical emission spectrometry (OES), after oxidizing the Br- ions to volatile Br2 in the reaction with KMnO4. The concentrations of all reagents needed for the successful operation of the proposed systems were found to be the most crucial parameters and their impact on the intensity of the Br analytical line was studied. Under the optimal conditions, the analytical figures of merit were assessed. The endurance to the matrix effects of both developed methods was also investigated and both of them were found to be strongly insusceptible to the presence of foreign ions. The detection limits (DLs) of Br and was established to be 0.05 and 0.2 mg L-1 for CVG-FLA- and CVG-FLC-APGD, respectively. The developed methods were successfully applied for the determination of relatively low concentrations of Br in selected water samples, spiked with this element, with very good precision (0.9–6.1% as RSD) and trueness (94–110% as recovery). In addition, no significant differences between the results obtained using the external standard calibration and the standard addition method were noted.