Multielement Determination of Trace Metals in River Water (Certified Reference Material, JSAC 0301-1) by High Efficiency Nebulization ICP-MS after 100-fold Preconcentration with a Chelating Resin-Packed Minicolumn

Abstract

The determination of 34 trace metals in a river water certified reference material (CRM), i.e. JSAC 0301-1, which was issued by the Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry in January 2004, was performed by ICP-MS with a high efficiency nebulizer after preconcentration with a laboratory-made chelating resin-packed minicolumn, with which trace metals were concentrated 100-fold from 50 mL of a river water sample to 0.5 mL of the final analysis solution. Trace metals in JSAC 0301-1 were observed in the concentration range from 19 microg L(-1) of Al to 0.000053 microg L(-1) of Bi. It was found that most of the concentrations of trace metals, including rare earth elements (REEs), in JSAC 0301-1 were lower than those in JAC 0031, which was also a previously issued CRM prepared with water from the same river as that of JSAC 0301-1. The low concentrations of trace metals in JSAC 0301-1 might be attributed to the fact that there was a heavy rain before collecting the original water sample to prepare the present CRM. Furthermore, the REE distribution patterns of JSAC 0301-1, JAC 0031 and the average values of river water samples in Japan were parallel to each other. These results indicate that the distributions of REEs in JSAC 0301-1 and JAC 0031 were the typical ones of river water samples in Japan.