Abstract
A modified hydride generation, atomic absorption spectrophotometric (AAS) method for the analysis of total arsenic in hair has been developed to evaluate occupational exposures to arsenic. Hair samples are processed by a multi-step cleaning procedure to remove all external arsenic contamination prior to digestion in a nitric-sulfuric acid mixture. The resulting solution is diluted to volume with distilled water and subsequently analyzed by arsine generation and AAS using an argon-hydrogen entrained air flame. Recovery data indicate that the method is quantitative for the determination of arsenic with a recovery of over 90% and a detection limit of 0.02 micirogram.