Digestion method for the determination of As, B, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Ni, Pb and Sb by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES) in samples of polyvinyl acetate water emulsions were developed. A comparison between classical methods like calcination, acid digestion (low temperature and high temperature) on a heating plate and microwave digestion (MW) was made. Under optimum conditions, using the MW procedure, only 0.1% of residual carbon content (RCC) was found as residue and recoveries between 100 and 107%, with RSD between 0.5 and 2.5% and quantification limits between 0.003 and 0.29 mg kg-1 were obtained.
inorganic constituents; polyvinyl acetate; microwave digestion; ICP OES
