MULTIELEMENT DETERMINATION IN COMPLEX MATRICES BY INDUCTIVELY-COUPLEDPLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY (ICP-MS)

The accurate measurement of as many elements as possible in ancient ce ramic samples is the fundamental requirement for provenance studies. I NAA has been successfully used in the past to determine 24 elements ro utinely. This work shows how a relatively fast high-pressure microwave digestion procedure with hydrofluoric/nitric acid, coupled with subse quent analysis by ICP-MS, should yield concentration data for similar to 50 elements. Eighteen ceramic samples, all very well characterised by INAA, were analysed by ICP-MS, and the data for 23 elements plotted against the known INAA concentrations. Correlation coefficients were generally better than 90%. Reproducibilities of data, on a sample prep ared and analysed independently 3 times, were in the order of 5% for m ost elements. For elements with no INAA concentration data, isotope ra tio studies have shown very good agreement between theoretical and exp erimental results.