Determination of arsenic, selenium, and antimony using metastable transfer emission spectrometry

Metastable transfer emission spectrometry (MTES) has been shown to be an extremely sensitive method for the determination of trace metals. In this communication, the authors discuss the determination of As, Se, and Sb. The analytes are directly determined from aqueous solutions, in contrast to most other atomic spectrometric techniques where a separation/preconcentration procedure such as hydride generation must be performed to achieve good sensitivity. Detection limits for As, Se, and Sb are found to be 22, 16, and 65 pg, respectively