Electrothermal atomic-absorption spectrophotometric determination of molybdenum.

The sensitivity for determining Mo by ETA-AA is dependent on the heating programme employed when the peak-height method is used, but not when the peak area is used for evaluation of the AA signals. The linear range is greater at lower heating rate. Molybdenum can be directly determined in up to 8% NaCl solution without chemical pretreatment or background correction by making use of the high ashing temperature allowed, at which the matrix NaCl can be totally removed. The minimum recovery is 94.5%. Amounts of alkaline earth metals greater than 4000 times the amount of Mo give scatter signals, but these are time-resolved from the Mo signal. Any small effect on the peak height or area can be compensated for by background correction. The interference of tungsten is significant even at low concentrations (2-5 mug/ml) owing to the formation of stable compounds. Mo is determined in brines and acid digests of phosphate rocks after preconcentration and separation with the APDC-MIBK system, by ETA-AA of the organic extracts with or without mineralization.