Multianalysis of trace elements in mosses with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

As a part of an air-pollution biomonitoring survey, a procedure using induc tively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and microwave digestion wa s developed to achieve a high sample throughput and guarantee the accuracy of the results. This article presents an analytical method to measure 22 tr ace elements. As, Ba, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Hg, La, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, S b, Sr, Th, Tl, U, V, W were analyzed in 563 mosses collected in France. The digestion was performed in polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) vessel using the mixture HNO3-H2O2-HF The data were reprocessed taking into account the dri ft curve calculated for each element. The detection limits (DL) calculation was based on the standard deviations of the reagent blanks concentrations. The DL varied from one batch to another, because of the heterogeneity of t he mosses' elemental contents. The DL ranged between 0.001 mug/g (Cs, Tl) a nd 70 mug/g (Fe) and were mainly around 0.01 mug/g (As, Cd, Ce, Co, Hg, La, Mo, Sb, Sr, U, V,W). The detection limits obtained were in agreement with the concentrations observed in the samples, except for Hg and Ni. The repro ducibility between duplicates and the analytical precision were near 10%. T he procedure was tested with the mosses' reference materials.