An analytical method has been established for the determination of trace amounts of bismuth, cadmium, cobalt, copper, indium, manganese, nickel, lead and thallium in iron and steels by graphite furnace AAS. The iron and steels were dissolved in nitric acid. After the solution (20μl) was pipetted into a L'vov platform furnace, it was ashed and then atomized by using argon as a purge gas, and atomic absorption of each analyte was measured. The effect of diverse elements was suppressed by the use of peak area measurement. Synthetic calibration solutions were prepared by adding each analyte standard solution to iron matrix solutions. For bismuth, cadmium, cobalt, copper, indium, manganese, nickel, lead and thallium, limit of detection (3σ of blank values) were 0.15 ppm, 0.004 ppm, 0.05 ppm, 0.07 ppm, 0.1 ppm, 0.04 ppm, 0.08 ppm, 0.1 ppm and 0.12 ppm, respectively, when one gram of the specimen was used.
