[Determination of Sb and Bi in 24 international geological reference materials by using pressurized acid...

The authors studied in detail the memory effect of Bi, Sb, As and Te in ICP-MS. The produced memory effects of these element were in the order of Bi>Sb>Te>As. Bi was seriously adsorbed by the polypropylene sample storing bottle and the sample introduction system in the low nitric acid medium (0.01%-1% HNO3). The washout effect of 0.1% HF was found to be better than those of 6% HNO3 and 0.1% HClO4. Under the given experiment conditions, the instrumental limit of detection was 0.001 and 0.0001 ng x mL(-1) for Sb and Bi, respectively. The authors report the determination of Sb and Bi in 24 international geological reference materials by using pressurized acid digestion-ICP-MS (including AGV-2, BHVO-2, BCR-2, etc.). Most of the results were found to be in reasonable agreement with the reported values in the literature. The authors' determined values of Sb for GSR-1 (granite; 0.30 microg x g(-1)) and JP-1 (peridotite; 0.045 microg x g(-1)) are obviously higher than those reported values. This is attributed to the efficient pressurized acid digestion, which is generally much more efficient than conventional wet digestions for insoluble minerals.