Hydride generation - recent advances in atomic emission spectrometry

This article presents recent advances in the hydride-generation (HG) technique hyphenated with different discharges of the atomic emission spectrometry (AES) [i.e. inductively-coupled plasma (ICP), microwave-induced plasma (MIP), direct-current plasma (DCP) and glow discharge (GD)], serving as excitation sources of hydride-forming elements. It surveys and discusses various aspects of vapour-phase introduction, comprising the instrumentation for performing the reaction, the influence of the chemical reaction conditions, the existence of chemical and nonchemical interference effects and the approaches to eliminating or lessening the interferences, as well as the analytical applications to real samples. In addition, it presents the latest trends in the technique, such as expansion of the scope to some transition and noble metals and the usage of organised surfactant-based media for the enhancement of the reaction properties. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.