Application of methane mixed plasma for the determination of Ge, As, and Se in serum and urine by ICP/MS

Abstract

An analytical method for the simultaneous determination of trace Ge, As and Se in biological samples by inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry has been investigated. The effects of added organic gas into the coolant argon gas on the analyte signal were studied to improve the detection limit, accuracy and precision. The addition of a small amount of methane (10 mL/min.) into the coolant gas channel improved the ionization of Ge, As and Se. The analytical sensitivity of the proposed Ar/CH4 system was superior by at least two-fold to that of the conventional Ar method. In the present method, the detection limits obtained for Ge, As and Se were 0.014, 0.012 and 0.064 μg/L, respectively. The analytical reliability of the proposed method was evaluated by analyzing the certified standard reference materials (SRM). Recoveries of 99.9% for Ge, 103% for As, 96.5% for Se were obtained for NIST SRM of freeze dried urine sample. The proposed method was also applied to the biological samples.