Testing the accuracy of neutron activation analysis of silver in biological materials

While silver can be efficiently collected from biological materials into lead beads by conventional fire assay, reagent blanks make this method unsuitable for determining the metal at concentrations less than 1 ppm. A radiochemical neutron activation analysis method is described which avoids this problem and can give reliable results down to 1 ng g-1. The method was tested using various reference materials (RM), and it is concluded that NIES Mussel and Pepperbush are the best characterized RMs for determining traces of silver. (author)