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Determination of Te, As, Bi, Sb and Se (TABS) in Geological Reference Materials and Geo PT Proficiency Test Materials by Hydride Generation‐Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry (HG‐AFS)
Author(s) -
Mansur Eduardo Teixeira,
Barnes SarahJane,
Savard Dany,
Webb Peter C.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geostandards and geoanalytical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.037
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1751-908X
pISSN - 1639-4488
DOI - 10.1111/ggr.12289
Subject(s) - hydride , mass spectrometry , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , mass fraction , reference values , environmental chemistry , metal , chromatography , medicine , organic chemistry
The study of Te, As, Bi, Sb and Se (TABS) has increased over the past years due to their use in the development of low‐carbon energy technologies. However, there is a scarcity of mass fraction values of TABS in geological reference materials. This underlines the difficulty in undertaking routine determinations of these elements. The mass fractions of TABS were determined in geological reference materials using hydride generation‐atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HG‐AFS), calibrated with standard solutions. Comparisons with literature values were used to validate the method. Samples from the Geo PT proficiency test were also analysed. For most elements, there are no assigned or even provisional values for many of the Geo PT and reference materials because of the wide range of results reported. For mass fractions above the quantification limit of the method, our results are in good agreement with the median of Geo PT results. Thus, we propose Geo PT median values as informational values for these elements. In contrast, at mass fractions < 0.5 µg g −1 median values of Se from Geo PT are systematically higher than our results. Our Se results are in agreement with the reference materials down to 0.02 µg g −1 , which suggest that many of the results for Se reported in Geo PT testing are too high.