Interference-free determination of trace levels of gold and palladium in geological and metallurgical samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry coupled with a flow injection on-line microcolumn preconcentration and separation system.

A simple and highly selective method was developed for the routine determination of trace or ultratrace amounts of gold and palladium in geological and metallurgical samples. The method uses flow injection on-line preconcentration and separation with determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Au and Pd in the sample are adsorbed on a 2-mercaptopyrimidine chemically modified silica gel (MPMSG) packed microcolumn in a 0.50M HCl medium and then eluted with 0.5 or 1.0% thiourea solution. The eluates are introduced into the flame atomic absorption spectrometer directly. With the use of a 0.85 mL microcolumn (about 0.14 g MPMSG packed), the present system tolerated concentrations of common base metal ions up to 25.0 mg/mL and concentrations of anions up to 100.0 mg/mL when Au(III) at 0.100 microg/mL and Pd(II) at 0.200 microg/mL were preconcentrated for 60 s with a sample flow rate of 5.0 mL/min. The limits of detection were 3.1 ng/mL for Au(III) and 6.1 ng/mL for Pd(II) with relative standard deviations of < or = 2.5%. The analytical results obtained by the proposed method for geological and metallurgical samples were in good agreement with the certified values.