Low cost trace metal analyses

Voltammetry has significant advantages: trace metal analyses can be carried out with the same or better sensitivity for a fraction of the cost of an AAS or ICP instrument

Trace metal analyses can be carried out with the same or better sensitivity for a fraction of the cost of an AAS or ICP instrument.

The low running costs are an additional bonus point for voltammetry.

Apart from small amounts of reagents only small volumes of pure nitrogen are required.

No expensive combustible gases, no reconstruction of the laboratory for special gas supplies and fume hoods, no expensive lamps.

And no time-consuming calibration of the analytical system.

The concentration is determined by standard addition to each sample, which can be carried out automatically.

In this way matrix effects are eliminated to a large extent.

The results are inherently correct.

Apart from the determination of the total concentration, which is normally obtained with spectroscopic methods, voltammetry allows you to distinguish the different oxidation stages of metal ions or differentiate between free and bound metal ions as well as to specify the biological availability of heavy metals.

This turns voltammetry into an essential tool for environmental analysis.

Comparable insights can only be gained by spectroscopy after complicated separation of the metal species.

Its compact size means that the VA instrument can also be used in mobile laboratories.

Samples with high ionic concentration are no problem for voltammetry.

Not only metals but also various organic compounds can be determined by voltammetry.

VA techniques are used in organic chemistry and in the pharmaceutical industry.

Some special anions can also be determined by voltammetry.

The determination of environmentally relevant anions like cyanide, sulfide, nitrite or nitrate is particularly interesting.

The main advantages of Voltammetric trace analysis are: it has extremely low detection limits: it has no problems with high salt concentrations; it allows speciation; it differentiates between free and complexed metal ions; it can also analyse non-metals such as anions or organics.

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