Since fragments of concrete can be evidence of crime, a determination of whether or not they come from the same origin is required. The authors focused on nitric acid-soluble components in the fragments of concrete. As a result of qualitative analysis with ICP-MS, it was confirmed that elements such as Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr, Zr, Ba, La, Ce, Nd, and Pb were contained in the fragments. After the nitric acid-soluble components in the fragments of concrete were separated by dissolving them in nitric acid, the concentrations of these elements in the dissolved solution were quantitatively determined by ICP-MS. The concentration ratios of nine elements compared to La were used as indicators. By comparing these indicators, it was possible to discriminate between the fragments of concrete.

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Applications of ICP-QMS/QMS using H 2 as a reaction gas were investigated for the accurate and precise determination of Fe in glass fragments. The maximum signal to background ratio was calculated by dividing ion counts for the sample solution (50 ng mL -1 Fe in 0.8 mol L -1 HNO 3 ) by that obtained for a blank solution (0.8 mol L -1 HNO 3 ) at H 2 gas ‰ow rates of 8 and 6 mL min -1 for m/z＝54 and 56, respectively. The obtained values for 54 Fe and 56 Fe in a certiˆed reference glass material (NIST 612) under the optimized condition in the H 2 gas mode showed a good match with the reference value (51±2 mg g -1 ) with a precision of ＜7.1 by RSD. The number of indistinguishable pairs among the 13 sheet glass samples manufactured using the same production line was limited to 12 of 78 by comparison of only Fe concentrations measured using the method developed herein, demonstrating the potential contribution of Fe analysis to enhanced evidence collection.