MICROWAVE DISSOLUTION OF PLANT-TISSUE AND THE SUBSEQUENT DETERMINATION OF TRACE LANTHANIDE AND ACTINIDE ELEMENTS BY INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY
Js. Alvarado et al., MICROWAVE DISSOLUTION OF PLANT-TISSUE AND THE SUBSEQUENT DETERMINATION OF TRACE LANTHANIDE AND ACTINIDE ELEMENTS BY INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY, Analytica chimica acta, 322(1-2), 1996, pp. 11-20
Recently there has been much concern about the ability of plants to up
take heavy metals from their surroundings. With the development of ins
trumental techniques with low detection limits, such as inductively co
upled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), attention is shifting toward
achieving faster and more elegant ways of oxidizing the organic materi
al inherent in environmental samples. Closed-vessel microwave dissolut
ion was compared with conventional methods for the determination of co
ncentrations of cerium, samarium, europium, terbium, uranium, and thor
ium in a series of samples from the National Institute of Standards an
d Technology and from fields in Idaho. The ICP-MS technique exhibited
detection limits in parts-per-trillion and linear calibration plots ov
er three orders of magnitude for the elements under study. The results
obtained by using nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave di
gestion system for the analysis of reference materials showed close ag
reement with the accepted values. These values were compared with resu
lts obtained from dry- and wet-ashing procedures. The findings from an
experiment comparing radiometric techniques for the determination of
actinide elements to ICP-MS are reported.