A portable solution cathode glow discharge-atomic emission spectrometer for the rapid determination of thallium in water samples

A novel and high performance method for rapid determination of thallium in water samples was established by using a portable solution cathode glow discharger with a fiber-optical spectrometer. The operating conditions including the solution acidity, the electrolyte cathode, etc were optimized with 1.0 mg L-1 thallium standard solution. The resolution of the fiber-optical spectrometer investigated with the peak width at half height of thallium was tested to be about 1.8 nm, and thallium was determined at the emission wavelength of 535.0 nm. The caliberation curve was favorably linear when the concentrations of thallium standard solutions were in the range of 0.1 mg L-1 similar to 5.0 mg L-1. Under the optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) for thallium was 11.8 ng mL(-1), and the precision evaluated by relative standard deviation was 3.2% for six times 1.0 mg L-1 standard solution replicates. This method was used for detection of thallium in water samples. The results were satisfying, and the average recoveries for thallium spiked samples were found to be in the range of 91.3 similar to 107.5%, which showed this method was applicable for real samples analysis. Besides, this method is suitable for field tests due to the portable instrumental size and weight as well as the less consumption of time and reagent.