Zhu Yanbei
National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
Front Chem. 2022 Jun 29;10:912938. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.912938. eCollection 2022.
Nitrous oxide (NO) was investigated as the reaction gas for the determination of rare earth elements (REEs) by inductively coupled plasma-tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS/QMS). The use of NO as the reaction gas apparently improved the yields of MO for Eu and Yb in the reaction cell. As a result, the sensitivities for measurement of Eu and Yb were apparently improved in comparison to those obtained with O as the reaction gas. A high sensitivity measurement of the whole set of REEs was achieved, providing a typical sensitivity of 300,000 CPS mL/ng for REEs measured with an isotope having isotopic abundance close to 100%. The use of NO as the reaction gas helped suppress Ba-related spectral interferences with the measurement of Eu, permitting the measurement of Eu in a natural sample without mathematic correction of spectral interferences. The detection limits (unit, pg/mL) for 14 REEs (except for Pm) from La to Lu were 0.028, 0.018, 0.006, 0.026, 0.006, 0.010, 0.017, 0.006, 0.016, 0.010, 0.016, 0.004, 0.023, and 0.012, respectively. The validity of the present method was confirmed by determining REEs in river water-certified reference materials, namely, SLRS-3 and SLRS-4.
研究了一氧化二氮（NO）作为反应气，采用电感耦合等离子体串联四极杆质谱（ICP-QMS/QMS）测定稀土元素（REEs）。使用NO作为反应气明显提高了反应池中Eu和Yb的MO产率。因此，与以O作为反应气相比，Eu和Yb的测量灵敏度明显提高。实现了整套REEs的高灵敏度测量，对于同位素丰度接近100%的同位素测量REEs，典型灵敏度为300,000 CPS mL/ng。使用NO作为反应气有助于抑制与Eu测量相关的Ba光谱干扰，从而无需对光谱干扰进行数学校正即可测量天然样品中的Eu。从La到Lu的14种REEs（除Pm外）的检测限（单位：pg/mL）分别为0.028、0.018、0.006、0.026、0.006、0.010、0.017、0.006、0.016、0.010、0.016、0.004、0.023和0.012。通过测定河水标准参考物质SLRS-3和SLRS-4中的REEs，证实了本方法的有效性。
