Determination of Platinum Group Elements in Sulfide-Containing Minerals by Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry with Synthetic Calibration Standards

Abstract

This paper develops sulfide calibration standards for quantitative determination of platinum group elements in natural sulfide-containing minerals by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). A series of sulfide calibration standards containing different concentrations of platinum group elements were prepared using a home-made high temperature furnace. Homogeneity of element distribution expressed as the RSD of signal intensity were less than 10%. The effective concentrations of platinum group elements in synthetic calibration standards were obtained both by pneumatic nebulization ICP-MS and by LA-ICP-MS. Relative percentage differences of these results obtained by two methods were mainly less than 11%. The synthetic calibration standards were then employed as calibrators for quantitative determination of platinum group elements in two natural chalcopyrite samples. The valid results demonstrated that our synthetic standards could be considered for quantitative microanalysis of platinum group elements in natural sulfide-containing minerals.

Keywords:

• LA-ICP-MS
• Platinum group elements
• Sulfide calibration standard
• Sulfide-containing minerals

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers who helped to improve this manuscript.