RESUMEN
Strontium has been determined in a human serum reference material by ICP-MS and by NAA. By ICP-MS, results for (88)Sr and (86)Sr in both 10- and 5-fold diluted serum were in good agreement. For (88)Sr the precision was better than 3% and the detection limit was 0.05 mug/l. under the conditions used. The results were 25.5 mug/l. in the liquid serum or 0.281 mug/g in the lyophilized reference material. In the NAA the (87m)Sr produced was radiochemically separated by extraction with oxine in chloroform. The precision was about 10% and the detection limit 0.02-0.05 mug/g.
RESUMEN
A method is described for the determination of mercury in human blood serum and packed blood cells employing neutron activation analysis. Great attention was devoted to the collection and manipulation of the samples. The accuracy and precision of the method were tested by analyzing biological reference materials and by comparing the concentrations measured in a number of serum samples to those obtained by another, independent technique (cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry) in the same samples. The article reports the levels measured in blood serum and packed blood cells samples from 15 adult volunteers, as well as the figures determined in a "second-generation" biological reference material (freeze-dried human serum), prepared and conditioned at the University of Ghent.