Volatile antimony-containing species

For those organohalogen compounds which can undergo intramolecular dehydrohalogenation, reaction sequence [1] has been proposed as the principal route to the generation of volatile antimony containing species (3, 5, 7, 18, 20). ... 

For those organohalogen compounds which cannot readily undergo intramolecular dehydrohalogenation, two alternative reaction sequences, (2) and [3], for the generation of volatile antimony containing species have been proposed (9, 21, 22). 

Small amounts of PTFE, added to several polymers that are flame retarded with antimony-bromine systems, can significantly improve their flame retardancy. The chemical reaction between PTFE and Sb20s leads to the evolution of volatile Sb-containing species which, however, are not responsible for the whole mechanism of flame retardancy as the improvement requires all components to be involved the polymer, the bromine system and, of course, the PTFE. It has been found that SbFs is the species of greatest interest since it is likely to be formed in high temperature reaction between PTFE and antimony trioxide. 

The advantages of microwave dissolution include fester digestion that results from the high temperature and pressure attained inside the sealed containers. The use of closed vessels also makes it possible to eliminate uncontrolled trace element losses of volatile species that are present in a sample or that are formed during sample dissolution. It is well known that significant amounts of elements such as arsenic, boron, chromium, mercury, antimony, selenium, and tin are lost at relative mild temperature with some open vessel acid dissolution procedures [8,9]. Another advantage of microwave dissolution is to have better control of potential contamination in blank as compared to open vessel procedures. This is due to less contamination from laboratory environment, unclean containers, and smaller quantity of reagents used. 

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