Behaviour of the dithiocarbamate complexes of arsenic, antimony, bismuth, mercury, lead, tin and selenium in methanol with a hydride generator

A study was carried out with a continuous hydride generator coupled to an atomic emission spectrometer with inductively-coupled plasma to determine whether hydrides of As, Bi, Pb, Sb, and Se and mercury vapor could be generated in methanol solutions of their dithiocarbamate complexes. It wasfound that (with the exception of Pb) hydride generation with sufficient efficiency for simultaneous multi-element determination is achieved using 0.25% NaBH4-0.6 mol l(-1) HCl as reaction medium. The detection limit was found to be 0.2 ng for As, 30 ng ml(-1) for Bi, 0.03 ng ml(-1) for Se, Sb and Sn.