Certification of a Natural Silicon Reference Material with SI‐Traceable Isotopic Composition

Abstract

Silicon (Si) is the second most abundant element in the continental crust. Studies have illustrated that silicon isotopes have a potential to be tracers in the biogeochemical silica cycle. This paper details a developed method for the production and certification of a new Si reference material with natural-like isotopic composition using a fully calibrated multi-collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS). To correct for the mass bias effect, three blend solutions were gravimetrically prepared with isotopically enriched 28 Si, 29 Si and 30 Si materials. Homogeneity and stability tests were performed, and no significant influences were found. Uncertainties of property values were evaluated, and the traceability to the International System of Units (SI) was established. The developed certified reference material (GBW04503) is a silicon powder (≈ 300 mesh) with high purity (≈ 0.999 99 kg kg -1 ), which can be used in silicon isotopic measurement to support validation of analytical procedures and/or quality control of gas source mass spectrometry (GS-MS) or MC-ICP-MS. The certified isotope amount ratios of n( 29 Si)/n( 28 Si) and n( 30 Si)/n( 28 Si) are 0.050291(12) mol mol -1 and 0.033397 (16) mol mol -1 , respectively, (k = 2), and the certified isotope amount fractions of silicon are 92.2776(20)% ( 28 Si), 4.6407(10) % ( 29 Si) and 3.0818( 14)% ( 30 Si) (k = 2). Meanwhile, the delta value of δ 30/28 Si NBS 28 = 1.679(17)‰ was obtained (k = 2).

Development of New Series of Certified Reference Materials for Ferrosilicon Magnesium Alloys

“…Moreover, SRM-347 was developed, in 1990, without the ISO 17034 standard [20] of consistency, and it is not currently available. Presently, work is being carried out to produce CRMs for the silicon industry, but none of them correspond, in terms of the composition, to the CRM for FSM presented in this manuscript [21,22].…”