Detection of uranium in industrial and mines samples by microwave plasma torch mass spectrometry

Abstract

Microwave plasma torch (MPT), traditionally used as the light source for atomic emission spectrophotometry, has been employed as the ambient ionization source for sensitive detection of uranium in various ground water samples with widely available ion trap mass spectrometer. In the full-scan mass spectra obtained in the negative ion detection mode, uranium signal was featured by the uranyl nitrate complexes (e.g. [UO2 (NO3 )3 ](-) ), which yielded characteristic fragments in the tandem mass spectrometry experiments, allowing confident detection of trace uranium in water samples without sample pretreatment. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the calibration curves were linearly responded within the concentration levels ranged in 10-1000 µg·l(-1) , with the limit of detection (LOD) of 31.03 ng·l(-1) . The relative standard deviations (RSD) values were 2.1-5.8% for the given samples at 100 µg·l(-1) . The newly established method has been applied to direct detection of uranium in practical mine water samples, providing reasonable recoveries 90.94-112.36% for all the samples tested. The analysis of a single sample was completed within 30 s, showing a promising potential of the method for sensitive detection of trace uranium with improved throughput.