title: Spectrometric estimation of sample amount in aliquot for a direct solid sampling system and its application to the determination of trace impurities in silver nanoparticles by ETV-ICP-OES.
abstract: A method based on a tungsten boat furnace vaporiser, tungsten sample cuvettes, and an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) optical emission spectrometer has been developed for the direct determination of silicon, phosphorus, and sulphur in silver nanoparticles. The important point in the proposed method is that the entire sample in each batch is vaporised, which enables simultaneous measurement of the emission of not only the analyte but also the silver matrix. Furthermore, since the silver nanoparticles are sufficiently pure, the contribution of impurities to the sample amounts will be negligible. Therefore, this estimation is suitable for measuring the sample amount in each aliquot instead of the conventional weighing procedure using a microbalance; therefore, no tedious weighing procedures for estimating the sample amount introduced into the ETV device are needed. An additional advantage is that pretreatment and/or predigestion are unnecessary. The sample throughput is approximately 35 batches per hour. The detection limits of silicon, phosphorus, and sulphur in the silver nanoparticles (dry powder) are 15, 4.2, and 62 µg g(-1), respectively. Analytical results for various silver nanoparticles as both dry particles and in suspended solutions are described, and these values are compared to those obtained by conventional weighing with a microbalance. This methodology is useful for rapid screening and accurate analysis of silver nanoparticles, especially for industrial applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739-8526, Japan. Electronic address: kenichi_nakata@air.so-net.jp.
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakata
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739-8526, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Okamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739-8526, Japan.
authors.forename: Syoji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ishizaka
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Hiroshima University, 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashihiroshima 739-8526, Japan.
authors.forename: Terufumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujiwara
keywords: Determination of impurities; Direct solid sampling; ETV-ICP-AES; Nanoparticle; Spectrometric estimation of sample amount; Tungsten boat furnace vaporiser