Determination and speciation of selenium in water samples collected from Muğla (Turkey) province by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry

In this work, determination of selenium in various water samples was done by using hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry. The most appropriate values of HCl concentration, NaBH4 concentration, NaOH concentration, flow rate of argon and flow rate of waste solution were determined. The optimum concentration of the HCl, NaBH4 and NaOH solutions were found to be 7.0 mol L−1, 1.0% and 0.75%, respectively. The optimum flow rate of Ar gas and waste solution were also found to be 100.9 mL min−1 and 4.0 mL min−1, respectively. Values of LOD and LOQ were calculated separately for total Se and Se(IV). LOD and LOQ values were calculated 0.56 μg L−1, 1.87 μg L−1 for total Se and 0.72 μg L−1, 2.40 μg L−1 for Se(IV), respectively. The precision was evaluated by relative standard deviation (RSD%) was found to be 3.5% for total Se and 3.1% for Se(IV) (n = 11). A standard reference material (NIST 1643e) was used in order to check the accuracy of the proposed method. There was a good agreement between certified and found values for standard reference material. The method was applied to the analysis of total Se and Se(IV) concentrations in tap water samples collected from the various regions of Muğla. Proposed method showed spike recovery ranges from 92% to 116% in water samples.