In Situ Dielectric Barrier Discharge Trap for Ultrasensitive Arsenic Determination by Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry

The mechanisms of arsenic gas phase enrichment (GPE) by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) was investigated via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), in situ fiber optic spectrometer (FOS), etc. It proved for the first time that the arsenic species during DBD trapping, release, and transportation to the atomic fluorescence spectrometer (AFS) are probably oxides, free atoms, and atom clusters, respectively. Accordingly, a novel in situ DBD trap as a GPE approach was redesigned using three-concentric quartz tube design and a modified gas line system. After trapping by O-2 at 9.2 kV, sweeping for 180 s, and releasing by H-2 at 9.5 kV, 2.8 pg detection limit (LOD) was achieved without extra preconcentration (sampling volume = 2 mL) as well as 4-fold enhancement in absolute sensitivity and similar to 10 s sampling time. The linearity reached R-2 > 0.998 in the 0.1-8 mu g/L range. The mean spiked recoveries for tap, river, lake, and seawater samples were 100-106%; and the measurements of the certified reference materials (CRMs) were in good agreement with the certified values. In situ DBD trap is also suitable to atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) or optical emission spectrometry (OES) for fast and on-site determination of multielements.