Flow-injection chemical vapor-generating procedure for the determination of Au by atomic absorption spectrometry

Volatile Au species in an acidified medium were generated at room temperature by reduction with NaBH4 in acidified aqueous medium using a flow-injection chemical vapor-generation atomic absorption spectrometric (FI-CVG-AAS) system in the presence of micro amounts of sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC). Precision of 2.0% RSD (n = 11, 2.0 mg L(-1) level) was obtained at a sample throughput of 180 h(-1). A detection limit of 24 ng mL(-1) (3sigma) was obtained with 300 microL sample solution. The method was used for the determination of gold in ore sample digests, and the results obtained agreed well with those obtained by flame AAS.