Trimethyltin chloride determination by hydride generation — gas phase molecular absorption spectrometry: A sequential application of experimental designs Original Research Article

In this paper, a sequential experimental design is applied to optimize the determination of trimethyltin chloride (TMT) by hydride generation-gas phase molecular absorption spectrometry. The TMT is converted into gaseous trimethyltin hydride by adding a sodium tetrahydroborate (III) solution. The hydride generated is collected in a liquid nitrogen cryogenic trap. This is revolatilized, driven to the quartz flow cell and measured with gas phase molecular absorption spectrometry with diode array detection. A Plackett-Burman design is used to study the parameters affecting the production, collection and measurement of the hydrides. The optimization of these parameters is achieved using a central composite design. PLS, MLR and univariate calibration are applied to the spectra obtained. The detection and quantification limits are 1.5 and 4.6 ng ml−1, respectively, and the relative standard deviation (n = 10) at 15 ng ml−1 was 5.5%. An interference study is presented.