Simultaneous detection of As and Se in polyester resin skin phantoms.

It is known that As and Se act as metabolic antagonists. Hence, an improvement in assessing As-related health risks can be achieved by simultaneous quantitative measurements of both As and Se levels in the human body. In this paper, the simultaneous detection of trace concentrations of As and Se in polyester resin skin phantoms was demonstrated. The experiments were performed with a commercial miniature X-ray tube and silicon PiN detector X-ray fluorescence (XRF) system. No significant overlap between the K(alpha) peaks of the two elements was observed. Minimum detection limits of (1.05+/-0.02) microg As g(-1) and (0.88+/-0.02) microg Se g(-1) were found. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.