Abstract
Two different digestion methods—microwave digestion (Mw) and Savillex digestion (Sx)—were used to evaluate the best quality control for analysis of the rare earth elements, Th and U in the geochemical certified reference material JSd-2, supplied by the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ). The analysis of trace elements was carried out using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The digestion recovery was > 90% for almost all elements by both methods. Mw-4 (four repeats of the microwave digestion) was found to be more effective and faster than Sx. In order to evaluate the efficiency of Mw-4, three other GSJ certified reference materials, JLk-1, JB-1 and JB-3, as well as five different soil samples from Belarus, Japan, Serbia and Ukraine were also analyzed. The Mw-4 method was seen to be promising for complete digestion and recovery of most of the elements. The U/Th ratio showed some heterogeneity for Ukraine and Serbia soils affected by Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and depleted uranium contamination, respectively. This method can be successfully applied to any type of soils for elemental analyses.
Highlights
Concerns over accumulation of trace elements, rare earth elements (REEs), uranium (U) and thorium (Th) and the possible ecological effects their accumulation has on the environment are increasing due to rapid industrialization
The same method has been applied for REEs, Th and U analyses in five different soils: two contaminated by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident, one collected from Ukraine and the other from Belarus; two collected from Japan, one contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) accident and another from Hiroshima; and the final one contaminated by depleted uranium weapons, collected from Serbia in the present work
The selection of a reference material is dependent on abundance of the elements of interest in that material and the soils to be examined
Summary
Concerns over accumulation of trace elements, rare earth elements (REEs), uranium (U) and thorium (Th) and the possible ecological effects their accumulation has on the environment are increasing due to rapid industrialization. The same method has been applied for REEs, Th and U analyses in five different soils: two contaminated by the CNPP accident, one collected from Ukraine and the other from Belarus; two collected from Japan, one contaminated by the FDNPS accident and another from Hiroshima; and the final one contaminated by depleted uranium weapons, collected from Serbia in the present work. Such type of approach is scarcely available in literature
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