Determination of various extracted Al species and their fractions by atomic spectrometry techniques

Complete text of publication follows. During the last few decades aluminium and its distribution in the environment has attracted much attention because of Al toxic effects to the plants, animals and humans. Its concentration in different environmental samples varies widely. While determination of high Al concentrations can be realized with no serious problem, reliable determination of its trace and ultratrace concentrations requires the development of enrichment techniques capable of improving both, the selectivity and also sensitivity for this analyte. Two extraction methods were used for selective separation and preconcentration of aluminium trace concentrations from model solutions. Solid phase extraction (SPE) using nanometer-sized titanium dioxide as a solid sorbent and cloud point extraction (CPE) using nonionic surfactant octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol (Triton X-114) were utilized. Spectrometry techniques such as flame (F AAS) and electrothermal (ET AAS) atomic absorption spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES) or inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS) were applied for the determination of aluminium. Direct TiO2-slurry sampling was used for sample injection into the graphite furnace of ET AAS in SPE. Optimized procedures were used for the determination of trace and ultratrace amounts of total aluminium and various aluminium species and their fractions in speciation analysis and fractionation studies using environmental samples such as natural waters, soils and sediments. The work was supported by Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contracts No. APVT-20-010204, LPP-0038-06, LPP-0146-09 and SK-CZ-0044-07, by Scientific Grant Agency of Ministry of Education of Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences under the contracts No. VEGA 1/4464/07 and VEGA 1/0272/08 and by Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Czech Republic under the contract No. MEB 080813.