Trace Elements Analysis of Geological Samples by Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

This paper describes recent work applying a laser ablation system (LSX-200) hyphenated with POEMS Ⅲ inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for the in situ analysis of22 trace elements of solid geological materials.It demonstrates the potential of LA-ICP-MS for the determination of geochemically important trace and ultra-trace elements following XRF routine sample preparation.Signal drift, difference in transport efficiency and sampling yield are well corrected with NISTSRM612as external calibration standard and Ca as internal standard.The obtained results agree to the recommended values with relative error better than15% and RSD less than15% for most determined trace elements.LOD ranges from 0.021×10^-6to 0.23×10^-6and less than 0.10×10^-6 for majority trace elements determined.In addition, home-made macro functions including filter and calculator compiled by VBA language under Excel software greatly enhanced off-line data reduction efficiency.