Thallium is considered one of the most toxic heavy metals and a cumulative poison that can cause adverse health effects and degenerative changes in many organs. The main threat to humans is through occupational exposure and environmental contamination.
Industry’s use of thallium is widespread, and leaching from ore processing operations is the major source of elevated thallium concentrations in water. Due to thallium’s potential to cause adverse health effects in exposed people, a number of regulations and guidelines have been established by agencies around the world.
Graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) has proven to be a well-established testing technique but is challenged with meeting the low detection limit requirements of the regulations by direct analysis, so the pre-concentration procedure is often needed. In this work, a PerkinElmer PinAAcle® 900H GFAA spectrometer combined with Syngistix™ for AA software were used to develop an accurate and reliable sample enrichment method for the determination of ultra-trace level thallium in water.