Importance of Prereducing Selenium(VI) to Selenium(IV) and Decomposing Organic Matter in Soil Extracts Prior to Determination of Selenium Using Hydride Generation

Abstract

Abstract Hydride generation techniques using NaBH 4 are widely used for the determination of Se in aqueous solutions. In soil extracts, Se(IV) is the only form of Se reduced to SeH 2 by NaBH 4 . Se(VI) must be prereduced to Se(IV) to be measured. Organic constituents of soil extracts also appear to inhibit hydride production. A pretreatment procedure overcoming these problems is presented, and a simple hydride generator is described.