Microwave-assisted digestion of ceramic frits for boron and lithium determination by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP-OES)

Boron and lithium are two elements commonly found in the chemical composition of ceramic frits. They are usually determined by volumetric titration and atomic absorption spectrometry, respectively, after melting the ceramic frit by high-temperature alkaline fusion and dissolving the melt in acid medium. This dissolution procedure is long and tedious, and does not enable determining both elements simultaneously. An alternative ceramic frit dissolution procedure based on microwave-assisted digestion in acid medium has been proposed, which allows jointly determining boron and lithium by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. This procedure is rapid and reproducible, and the results are independent of frit chemical composition.