Abstract
Abstract A method for direct determination of Ag in geological samples has been developed. In this study, various conditions involving optimizing the operating parameters of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) with or without membrane desolvation system were investigated. In comparison to the cooling spray chamber, the interferences of 91 Zr 16 O + , 91 Zr 18 O + , 90 Zr 16 OH + , and 90 Zr 18 OH + were found to be reduced by three orders of magnitude using membrane desolvation sample introduction system. The addition of 8 ml min −1 nitrogen to the carrier gas flow rate in membrane desolvation-ICP-MS increases sensitivity for Ag by a factor of 3.5, and reduces the oxide and hydroxide interferences by approximately 50%. Under the optimum conditions, the detection limit of Ag was 0.0005 µg l −1 . The excellent agreement between the determination Ag concentration values ( r = 0.995) in various geological samples ( n = 103) by using isotopes of 107 Ag and 109 Ag indicates negligible contributions of polyatomic interferences produced by Zr, Nb, and Y at these m/z . The proposed method was successfully applied to the direct determination of Ag in a series of international geological reference materials.
Published Version
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