Measurement of the Isotopic Composition of Molybdenum in Geological Samples by MC‐ICP‐MS using a Novel Chromatographic Extraction Technique

Abstract

A novel preconcentration method is presented for the determination of Mo isotope ratios by multi‐collector inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (MC‐ICP‐MS) in geological samples. The method is based on the separation of Mo by extraction chromatography using N‐benzoyl‐N‐phenylhydroxylamine (BPHA) supported on a microporous acrylic ester polymeric resin (Amberlite CG‐71). By optimising the procedure, Mo could be simply and effectively separated from virtually all matrix elements with a single pass through a small volume of BPHA resin (0.5 ml). This technique for separation and enrichment of Mo is characterised by high selectivity, column efficiency and recovery (~ 100%), and low total procedural blank (~ 0.18 ng). A 100Mo‐97Mo double spike was mixed with samples before digestion and column separation, which enabled natural mass‐dependent isotopic fractionation to be determined with a measurement reproducibility of < 0.09‰ (δ98/95Mo, 2s) by MC‐ICP‐MS. The mean δ98/95MoSRM 3134 (NIST SRM 3134 Mo reference material; Lot No. 891307) composition of the IAPSO seawater reference material measured in this study was 2.00 ± 0.03‰ (2s, n = 3), which is consistent with previously published values. The described procedure facilitated efficient and rapid Mo isotopic determination in various types of geological samples.