Determination of Boron, Lithium and Some Metals in Fly Ash by Laser Ablation ‒ Inductively Coupled Plasma ‒ Optical Emission Spectr ometry

To avoid potentially harmful wet sample preparation is offered to use laser ablation (LA) ‒ inductively coupled plasma ‒ optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) as a method for the elemental analysis of fly ash for boron, lithium, and some metals. For this purpose, synthetic samples were prepared by spiking with dissolved standards. As a result, great stability of calibration curves was achieved. It was found that a particle diameter less than 80 μm in fly ash is enough to have a satisfying homogeneity for successful calibration in the method of standard additions. The average recovery test for reference materials used in the study was 16–77% of the certified values for the elements observed. The low results might be the effect of spiking with calibration samples in the liquid state. This type of analysis requires further investigation. According to the results of elemental analysis, the content of boron and lithium was determined for ZUK-2 and SO-1, which was not previously noticed in other papers.