Determination of refractive and volatile elements in sediment using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Godfred Odame Duodu; Ashantha Goonetilleke; Charlotte Allen; Godwin A Ayoko

doi:10.1016/j.aca.2015.09.033

Determination of refractive and volatile elements in sediment using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Anal Chim Acta. 2015 Oct 22:898:19-27. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2015.09.033. Epub 2015 Oct 13.

Authors

Godfred Odame Duodu¹, Ashantha Goonetilleke², Charlotte Allen³, Godwin A Ayoko⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, 4001, QLD, Australia.
² School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, 4001, QLD, Australia.
³ Institute for Future Environments, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, 4001, QLD, Australia.
⁴ School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, 4001, QLD, Australia. Electronic address: g.ayoko@qut.edu.au.

PMID: 26526906
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2015.09.033

Abstract

Wet-milling protocol was employed to produce pressed powder tablets with excellent cohesion and homogeneity suitable for laser ablation (LA) analysis of volatile and refractive elements in sediment. The influence of sample preparation on analytical performance was also investigated, including sample homogeneity, accuracy and limit of detection. Milling in volatile solvent for 40 min ensured sample is well mixed and could reasonably recover both volatile (Hg) and refractive (Zr) elements. With the exception of Cr (-52%) and Nb (+26%) major, minor and trace elements in STSD-1 and MESS-3 could be analysed within ±20% of the certified values. Comparison of the method with total digestion method using HF was tested by analysing 10 different sediment samples. The laser method recovers significantly higher amounts of analytes such as Ag, Cd, Sn and Sn than the total digestion method making it a more robust method for elements across the periodic table. LA-ICP-MS also eliminates the interferences from chemical reagents as well as the health and safety risks associated with digestion processes. Therefore, it can be considered as an enhanced method for the analysis of heterogeneous matrices such as river sediments.

Keywords: Elemental analysis; Hydrogen fluoride digestion; Laser ablation; River sediment analysis; Sample preparation.