Determination of cadmium in spring water by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry after coprecipitation with ytterbium hydroxide.

A coprecipitation method with ytterbium hydroxide was studied for the determination of cadmium in water samples by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Up to 40 ng of cadmium in water samples was quantitatively coprecipitated with ytterbium hydroxide at pH 8.0-11.2. The concentration factor was 100 fold. The coprecipitated cadmium was sensitively determined without any influence of ytterbium and the calibration curve was linear from 0.1 to 4 ng/mL of cadmium. The detection limit (signal/noise = 2) was 2.9 pg/mL in 100 mL of the initial sample solution. Twenty-nine diverse ions tested did not interfere with the determination in at least a 10000-fold mass ratio to cadmium. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of cadmium in spring water.