Determination of cadmium in coal by metal furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

Conditions for determination of cadmium in coal were investigated by atomic absorption spectrometry using a boat-shape tungsten furnace. For concentrating and separating cadmium from the coexisting components cadmium dithizonate-m-xylene solution and the 0.05 mol/l perchloric acid solution were examined. Ashing and atomizing temperatures, sheath gas composition, distribution of the cadmium atoms in the furnace were examined. Similar characteristics were obtained for the determination of cadmium in perchloric acid solution and the chelate m-xylene solution, except that a reduction of the peak time and FWHM (full width at half maximum) was observed for the latter solution. When the atomization temperature is near 2300 deg C, the change in the magnitude of absorbance is small in terms of the temperature. The influence of hydrogen contained in the sheath gas was complicated: Change in the thermal conductivity with increasing hydrogen content, resulted decrease of the atomization temperature but the integrated absorbance did not change so much. The concentration of cadmium atoms decreased linearily in the vertical direction of the furnace, while absorbance in the horizontal direction was almost constant. Cadmium in coal was determined by the methods (1) solvent extraction, (2) back-extraction with perchloric acid, (3) on-boat standard addition method. (author)