title: Hydride generation atomic absorption spectrophotometry for determination of arsenic in hair.
abstract: A modified hydride generation, atomic absorption spectrophotometric (AAS) method for the analysis of total arsenic in hair has been developed to evaluate occupational exposures to arsenic. Hair samples are processed by a multi-step cleaning procedure to remove all external arsenic contamination prior to digestion in a nitric-sulfuric acid mixture. The resulting solution is diluted to volume with distilled water and subsequently analyzed by arsine generation and AAS using an argon-hydrogen entrained air flame. Recovery data indicate that the method is quantitative for the determination of arsenic with a recovery of over 90% and a detection limit of 0.02 microgram.
mesh_terms: D001151:Arsenic / Q000032:analysis*; D006197:Hair / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008722:Methods; D013054:Spectrophotometry, Atomic / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D001151:Arsenic