TY - JOUR A1 - Abad Andrade, Carlos Enrique A1 - Florek, S. A1 - Becker-Ross, H. A1 - Huang, M.-D. A1 - de Oliveira Guilherme Buzanich, Ana A1 - Radtke, Martin A1 - Lippitz, Andreas A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Schmid, Thomas A1 - Heinrich, Hans-Joachim A1 - Recknagel, Sebastian A1 - Jakubowski, Norbert A1 - Panne, Ulrich T1 - Zirconium permanent modifiers for graphite furnaces used in absorption spectrometry: understanding their structure and mechanism of action JF - Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry N2 - The mechanism of action of zirconium permanent modifiers on graphite surfaces was investigated in order to understand its influence on the analytical signal in atomic and molecular absorption spectrometry (AAS/MAS). For this, the molecule formation of CaF was studied, which is used for the indirect analytical determination of fluorine in high-resolution continuum source graphite furnace molecular absorption spectrometry (HR-CS-GFMAS). The kinetics of this reaction was established by monitoring its molecular spectrum at different atomisation temperatures. An Arrhenius plot showed a pseudo-first order reaction with respect to fluorine (n = 1). An intermediate state was isolated, and its structure was elucidated by spectroscopic methods: scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEMEDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES and EXAFS), and Raman microspectroscopy. We propose here a mechanism, where ZrO2 acts as a heterogeneous catalyst: after a pyrolytic step, an intermediate state of ZrO(OCaF) is activated, and at higher temperatures, CaF(g) is released from the zirconium-coated graphite surface. No evidence of the formation of zirconium carbide was found. Consequently, as the CaF formation is catalysed by a heterogeneous catalyst, surface modifications with ZrO2 nanoparticles and ZrO xerogels were investigated in order to increase the surface area. Their influence was evaluated in the molecule formation of CaF, CaCl, CaBr, and CaI. Graphite furnace modification with zirconium oxide nanoparticles proves to be the best choice for fluorine analysis with a signal enhancement of more than eleven times with respect a non-coated graphite furnace. However, the influence of zirconium modifications in the analytical signals of Cl, and I is lower than the F signals or even negative in case of the Br. Understanding zirconium modifiers as heterogeneous catalysts offers a new perspective to AAS and MAS, and reveals the potential of surface analytical methods for development of improved permanent modifiers and graphite furnace coatings. KW - Zirconium KW - HR-CS-MAS KW - Graphite furnace KW - Nanoparticles KW - Xerogel KW - Calcium monofluoride KW - Absorption spectrometry PY - 2018 UR - https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/ja/c8ja00190a DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/C8JA00190A SN - 0267-9477 VL - 33 IS - 12 SP - 2034 EP - 2042 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-46775 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - You, Zengchao A1 - Jakubowski, Norbert A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Weidner, Steffen T1 - Separation of polystyrene nanoparticles with different coatings using two-dimensional off-line coupling of asymmetrical flow field flow fractionation and capillary electrophoresis JF - Journal of Chromatography A N2 - The successful off-line coupling of asymmetrical flow field flow fractionation (AF4) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) for separation of nanoparticles (NPs) with different surface coatings was shown. We could successfully demonstrate that, in a certain NP size range, hyphenation of both techniques significantly improved the separation of differently coated NPs. Three mixtures of polystyrene nanoparticles (PS-NPs) with comparable core sizes but different coatings (no coating/carboxyl-coated) were studied. Separation in either method resulted in non-baseline resolved or non-separated peaks. In contrast, two-dimensional off-line coupling of AF4 and CE resulted in clearly separated regions in their 2 D plots in case of 20 and 50 nm particle mixtures, whereas the 100 nm NP mixture could not be separated at all. Various factors affecting the separation like hydrodynamic diameter or SDS concentration were discussed. KW - Capillary electrophoresis (CE) KW - Nanoparticles with same nominal diameter KW - Surface coating KW - Two-dimensional off-line coupling KW - Asymmetrical flow field flow fractionation (AF4) PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2019.01.056 VL - 1593 SP - 119 EP - 126 PB - Elsevier AN - OPUS4-47363 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -