Determination of the platinum-group elements in geological materials by ICP-MS using microwave digestion, alkali fusion and cation-exchange chromatography

Sample Digestion Methods for the Determination of Traces of Precious Metals by Spectrometric Techniques

“…10 Combined digestion procedures, a wet acid treatment followed by alkaline oxidizing fusion of an undissolved residue, are often applied for improving the recovery of the metals. [74][75][76] The use of hydrofluoric acid in the digestion procedures is preferable, particularly when examining geological 74,[76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85] and environmental materials. 72,[86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94] High-pressure systems and microwave heating are widely applied for improving the digestion of such samples.…”

“…[74][75][76] Any residue not dissolved in acids is submitted to Na2O2 fusion and, after dissolution, is combined with the main sample. The application of the sodium peroxide fusion procedure for the preparation of an automobile catalyst for the determination of platinum, palladium and rhodium by ICP-MS has recently been examined.…”

Studies on the Element Characteristics of Nephrite Minerals from Different Deposits by GD-MS

“…However, it is difficult to determine the element composition of nephrite minerals directly for the refractory nature of geological materials. The conventional solution-based methods of analyzing geological materials such as inductively coupled plasma, 6,7 needs the microwave acid digestion to analyze the refractory silicates and other compounds. Nevertheless, the sample digestion not only is time-consuming, but also could cause some contamination which leads to an incredible result.…”

A re-examination of platinum-group element concentrations in the environmental certified reference material BCR-723

“…Prior to 2000, the only CRMs available for PGEs were geological in origin, e.g. SARM-7, mineralized ore [15,16]; TDB-1, diabase [17,18]; WPR-1, altered peridotite diabase [17,18], etc. These CRMs were unsatisfactory for environmental measurements, as concentrations were much higher, commonly in the mg kg À1 range, than those found in sediment, dusts, soil, or airborne particulate matter and there was little similitude between the geologic and environmental matrices.…”

“…a sampling distribution of means, were grouped, and a grand mean was computed. This is the traditional approach that invokes the central limit theorem, despite a relatively small number of accepted data sets (Pt, 16;Rh,9;and Pd,8).…”