Determination of titanium at mu g g(-1) levels in milligram amounts of silicate materials by isotope dilution high resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry with flow injection

An accurate method for the determination of Ti at mu g g(-1) levels in mill igram amounts of silicate materials with isotope dilution high-resolution i nductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry equipped with flow injection sy stem (ID-FI-HR-ICP-MS) is presented. The chemical procedure requires HF dig estion of the sample with the Ti spike, subsequent evaporation and dissolut ion of Ti with HF in order to separate from Mg and Ca fluorides formed afte r the digestion of the sample. A 10 mg silicate sample containing 0.002% Ti O2 was measured with a blank correction of < 5%. To demonstrate the applica bility of this method, peridotite reference materials, PCC-1 and DTS-1, fro m the US Geological Survey (USGS) and JP-1 from the Geological Survey of Ja pan (GSJ) were analyzed (12-33 mg), to determine TiO2 content. The reproduc ibility was 3% for these peridotites with TiO2 contents of 0.003-0.004%. Th is method also gave TiO2 contents in BCR-1, BHVO-1 and AGV-1 from USGS and JB-1, -2, -3, JA-1, -2, and -3 from GSJ with reproducibility of 1-5% using test portions of 6-18 mg.