Dear Ashish,

Inductively coupled plasma-optical (or atomic) emission spectrometry (ICP-OES or ICP-AES) is an analytical technique used for determination of trace metals. This is a multi-element technique which uses a plasma source to excite the atoms in samples. These excited atoms emit light of a characteristic wavelength, and a dedector measures the intensity of the emitted light, which is related with the concentration. Samples are heated through 10000 ºC to atomize effectively which is an important advantage for ICP technique. Another advantage is multi element analysis. With ICP technique, 60 elements can be analysed in single sample run less than a minute simultaneously, or in a few minutes sequentially. Besides instrument is only optimized

for one time for e set of metal analysis. High operating temperature lowers the interferences. Determinations can be accomplised in wide lineer range and refractory elements can be determined at low concentrations (B, P, W, Zr, U).

It is expected that the presence of fluoride ions will not interfer with the determination of heavy metals using ICP-OES since ICP techniques have NOT been used so far for direct F- determination because of the high excitation and ionization potential presented by F- which resulted in extremely poor sensitivity.

However, If the medium has aluminum hydroxide or aluminium oxide precipitates which can dissolve as fluoroaluminates or hydroxyfluoroaluminates, an interference might occur in the determination of the heavy metals using ICP-OES since the mentioned fluoroaluminate species have high sensitivity to ICP-OES.

For more information on this topic, please see the publications contained in the following links:

http://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10210/401/WholeThesis.pdf?sequence=1

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/41608.pdf

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/wcu/f/Harris2016.pdf

Hoping this will be helpful,

Rafik

Thank you very much Sir (Rafik Karaman) for your elaborate answer. Many doubts are cleared now. Would there be any damage to the instrument due to the fluoride ions in the sample?