Studies on the use of XeF2 as digestion reagent

Abstract

A digestion procedure was developed for the determination of selected elements (Al, Ba, Ca, Ce, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, La, Mg, Ni, Sr, Pb, Zn) in sediments using XeF₂. The use of XeF₂ has some interesting features but this reagent should be handled only under dry gas which is a severe limitation of the methodology. In a first step the sediment sample (0.1 g) is dried (120 °C) and digested by XeF₂ (1.5 g) in the vapor phase (190 °C; 9 × 10⁶ Pa). Then the dry residue is dissolved in aqua regia and the solution digested at high pressure once again (aqua regia digestion). Subsequently the digested solution is diluted with sub-boiling distilled water and is ready for the analysis by ICP-MS. The sediment standard CRM 320 was analyzed to verify the procedure. A comparison of the results with those obtained by the normally used fluoric acid digestion showed that the recovery rates of each investigated element agreed within a confidence interval of 95%, except Cr. The recovery rate of Cr was lower for the XeF₂ digestion than for the fluoric acid digestion by more than 5%. Further studies were focussed on the possible digestion of SiC by XeF₂ as first step for the trace element determination. In the gaseous reaction products Si could be detected by ICP-MS which gives evidence to a decomposition of SiC. A digestion procedure for small Si samples (0.010 g) was developed. Detection limits (DL) determined for selected elements of analytical interest (Al, Ca, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Mg, Ni, Pb) were between 1 to 12 ng/g. For most of the elements this is an improvement in comparison to the HF vapor phase digestion. The verification of the method was carried out with GFAAS.