A Review of “Determination of Aluminum in Blood, Urine, and Water by Inductively
Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry”
Allain, P., Maures, Y. Determination of Aluminum in Blood, Urine, and Water by Inductively
Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry. Journal of Analytical Chemistry. 1979. 51(13), 20892091.
Caitlin Verhalen 23 April 2013
This article discusses the analysis of aluminum in body fluids. The determination metals
in body fluids became a popular topic to study ever since cases of certain brain diseases were
being discovered involving metals. The identification of aluminum in the past was often done
through atomic absorbance. However, this technique proved to have varying data for the results
so it was not reliable unless the procedure was repeated numerous times. The purpose of this
report was to determine is inductively coupled plasma emission was a more reliable technique
when detecting for aluminum in body fluids for humans. The apparatus that was used had a
Plasmatherm source inductively coupled to a high frequency of 27.12 MHz. Its magnetic field
was operating at1.5kW with a thermo regulated monochromator H-R 1000 allowing for an
electronic readout. The monochromator that they used in this apparatus happened to be a
holographic grating monochromator with 4200 grooves/mm. The focal length was 1m detecting
within a wavelength of 190-700nm. In this study they used argon gas as the coolant and carrier
gas. A concentric pneumatic nebulizer was the type of nebulizer used for this apparatus. The
background intensity was determined using a solution of aluminum in water, creating the best
signal and background ratio.
The procedure involved running the body fluids, water, urine, and blood assays at a
wavelength of 396.15nm. The body fluids were diluted before being used as a sample; however,
the body water sample used was both pure and diluted. This article greatly discussed the possible
conditions of interference they could have dealt with for the samples. They broke it up into
either, spectral interference, modification of background signal, or modification of signal
strength. They tested for 15 different elements for spectral interference and they found
interference for Ca, Fe, Pb, Zn, Hg, Cu, Bi, La, and Rb having signals with very close intensities
to aluminum's wavelength. Boron however gave several peaks around aluminum's wavelength
and could have introduced some errors in the detection of aluminum. There seemed to be an
issue with background levels when it came to specific metals such as Na, K, Ca, and Fe.
Especially in the case of Ca, it seemed as though this increase in background was going to
continue to increase as long as the entire component increased. When modifying the signal
strength of aluminum in the samples, they found that alkali and alkaline earth metals increased
the strength of the signal and only copper reduced the strength of the signal.
Since there was a boron interference with the detection of aluminum it would be
necessary to adjust the detection wavelengths to avoid that interference with boron. There should
however not be a high concentration of boron since it is not that common in biological samples.
This study had difficulty when nebulizing the blood since there are higher concentrations of
organic compounds in blood which can cause clogs. Even if they diluted the concentrations of
blood, they would be decreasing the sensitivity of the result. They discussed increasing the
diameter for the upper orifice of the tube in the torch so that blood could be assayed more
accurately. This studies' determination of aluminum in body fluids correlates to common
literature done through the atomic absorbance technique. The advantage of this technique for
aluminum detection is that this procedure proved to be much more reproducible than the studies
using atomic absorbance. The plasma torch method overall was a more efficient method for this
purpose. They had no difficulties in the injection of these body fluids for assaying thus proving
this technique to be superior to atomic absorbance.
One thing that stands out to me in this study is that they used a concentric nebulizer and
they ended up having issues with clogging during the procedure. Concentric nebulizers are
known to have great sensitivity however they are also known to be prone to clogging due to their
small fragile fused silica surface. These orifices are known to especially clog with samples that
are high in salt content. When testing body fluids it is necessary to believe that there will be a
larger Na content than most samples since much Na is passed through our bodies. The Babington
nebulizer would prove to be the best for this procedure since it is least susceptible to clogging
and can withstand high salt concentrations. It is especially good for blood samples since it is
known to nebulize very viscous liquids which is what this study had issues with. When it came to
their spectral interference, it could be debated that it was due to impurities in aluminum
concentrations at certain levels. If the concentration of the background solution was adjusted
then perhaps they could have seen different results when it came to spectral interference.
There were many aspects to this study that could have been adjusted in order to receive
different results. They were confident with their findings, however I think different dilutions for
background findings could have helped them since they were having issues with certain metals
getting in the way of their detection, such as Ca. They could have also used a different nebulizer
that would be less susceptible to clogging such as the Babington nebulizer since they had issues
with clogging. Overall this was an interesting article discussing the advantages of the inductively
coupled plasma method when identifying metals in body fluids when compared to the atomic
absorbance. This article, however informative is a little dated and some techniques were
definitely changed over the years when compared to the ICP method in present time.