Multielement determination of major-to-ultratrace elements in plant reference materials by ICP-AES/ICP-MS and evaluation of their enrichment factors

Abstract

The multielement determination of major-to-ultratrace elements in plant reference materials (SRM Pine Needles, SRM Tomato Leaves, and NIES Tea Leaves) was carried out by ICP-AES (inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry) and ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry). The plant sample was decomposed with nitric acid and hydrofluoric acid in a Teflon beaker on a hot plate. The digest was dissolved in 1 M HNO3 solution, and then subjected to elemental analyses. As a consequence, the analytical data for about 40 elements including rare earth elements (REEs) were obtained over a wide concentration range, for example, from 49600 μg g-1 of Ca to 6.2 ng g-1 of Lu in Tomato Leaves. The enrichment factors, which were estimated by normalizing the observed concentrations of analyte elements in plant reference materials to their soil abundances, were evaluated in order to discuss the relative abundances of various elements between plants and soil. It was found that most of the elements, except for REEs in Pine Needles and Tea Leaves, were significantly accumulated in the plant reference materials. In particular, the essential elements (K, Mg, Ca, Mn, Cu, Zn, B and P) for plant growth provided large enrichment factors.