Simultaneous Determination of Germanium, Arsenic and Some Other Trace Elements in Biological Reference Materials by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

• Published in: Nippon Kagakukai shi (1972) Vol. 1994; no. 3; p. 195
• Main Authors: NARUSAWA, Yoshio, MATSUBARA, Ikuko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Japan Science and Technology Agency 01.03.1994
• ISSN: 0369-4577
• DOI: 10.1246/nikkashi.1994.195

The authors established the rapid and convenient determination method for trace amounts of vanadium, nickel, zinc, germanium, arsenic and molybdenum in biological reference materials by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. For the dissolution o f these reference materials, two decomposition methods were examined: the one was the method that the sample was decomposed with nitric acid-hydrogen peroxide-hydrofluoric acid mixture in an open system; the other was the method using the teflon double-vessel digestion bomb. The latter decomposition method has the advantage that the risk of contamination and sample leakage can be greatly reduced for especially germanium determination. About 250 mg of these samples were weighed in a Teflon Tuf-Tainer screw-cap vial (7 cm3) and 3 cm3 of ultra-high purity nitric acid was added. The vial was put into a Teflon vessel (24 cm3) and then the vessel was placed into a stainless-steel jacket. The bomb was heated in an air-oven at 90°C for 2 h and then 130°C for 4 h. After cooling, the digest in the Tuf-Tainer vial was gently warmed on a hot plate to release nitrogen dioxde. Except for pepperbush, all samples examined (chlorella, human hair, mussel, tea leaves, sargasso of NIES reference materials and bovine liver of NBS reference material) cleanly dissolved. For pepperbush, 1 cm3hydrofluoric acid (1: 2.33) was added to dissolve siliceous material. In this case, heating of the sample caused the loss of germanium. In the present work, following analytical results were obtained in, ug/g: germanium in chlorella, mussel and sargasso were (0.76 ± 0.20), (23.5 ± 0.4) and (1.23 ± 0.21), respectively; vanadium in human hair and tea leaves were (0.64 ± 0.10) and (0.17 ± 0.05), respectively; nickel in sargasso was (1.75 ± 0.86); arsenic in human hair was (0.056 ± 0.022); molybdenum in pepperbush, chlorella, h uman h air, m ussel, t ea l eaves a nd s argasso w ere (0.57 ± 0.04), (1.10 ± 0.24), (0.074± 0.001), (1.11 ± 0.1, 1 )(0.18 ± 0.10) and (0.36 ± 0.02), respectively.