Determination of vanadium in urine by electrothermal atomisation atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A sensitive method for the determination of vanadium in urine by electrothermal atomisation atomic absorption spectrometry (ETA-AAS) is described. After wet ashing of the urine sample with nitric acid, vanadium is chelated with 8-hydroxyquinoline in isobutyl methyl ketone and determined by ETA-AAS with a pyrolytically coated graphite furnace atomiser. The effects of acidity and amount of reagent required for the extraction were studied. The reproducibility, precision, analytical recovery and interferences of the method were investigated. The method allows concentrations of vanadium of less than 0.5 µg l^–1 to be detected. The reference interval obtained is 0.87–8.55 µg l^–1 of vanadium.