Effect of solvent dilution on the ICP-AES based silicon sensitivity, the aerosol characteristics and the resulting organic solution properties in the analysis of petroleum products

The effects of the solvent dilution factor on the physical properties of the resulting organic solutions, the aerosol characteristics and the silicon sensitivity were studied in ICP-AES for four different petroleum products by using near total sample consumption systems. The four samples were two gasoline products having very different volatilities along with a kerosene and a diesel sample. Petroleum product samples were diluted with xylene using four sample dilutions; 1 : 2, 1 : 5, 1 : 10 and 1 : 50. The sample introduction systems were a single pass spray chamber associated with a micronebulizer and a demountable Direct Injection High Efficiency Nebulizer (d-DIHEN). A cyclonic spray chamber also associated with a micronebulizer was taken as the reference system. Silicon was used as the test element, because it has been previously demonstrated that the ICP-AES Si sensitivity was significantly modified according to its chemical form. Silicon was spiked in each diluted solution with the same concentration to test sensitivity. When considering the dilution factor as the key variable, it was found that for the two gasoline samples and the kerosene one, the higher this variable, the lower the sensitivity. This result was explained in terms of changes in the solution volatility and/or in the aerosol characteristics. It was also observed that the total sample consumption systems were less sensitive to changes in the properties of the resulting organic solutions than the system based on the cyclonic spray chamber. However, for the latter chamber, the properties of the resulting organic solution had a marked influence on the extent of the effect of the silicon chemical form on the sensitivity. This fact demonstrated the appearance of an undefined interaction between the analyte and the organic solution during the aerosol transport step. However, both the single pass spray chamber and the d-DIHEN mitigated this effect for all the samples.