Determination of Trace Elements in High‐Purity Palladium by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry Using an Internal Standard Method

Abstract

Method validation of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry analyses for trace impurities in high‐purity materials is often limited not only by the lack of suitable reference materials with the same matrix composition but also by the lack of a significant number of certified trace element concentrations in the available reference materials. This paper demonstrates a new and simple method for the direct determination of 44 trace elements in high‐purity palladium using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and an internal standard method. Sc and In were employed as internal standards to effectively eliminate nonspectral interferences from the Pd matrix. The detection limits of the 44 trace impurities were from 0.00078 to 0.46 µg/mL and the relative standard deviations (n=6) were below 3.5%. The method was further validated using a palladium standard material (Aldrich palladium standard material, CAS no. 7440053). The analytical results are in good agreement with the certified values.

Keywords:

• High‐purity palladium
• inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
• internal standard method
• trace impurities