Determination of gold at femtomolar levels in natural waters by flow-injection inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry

Abstract

51) Yang. Y.; D'Silva, A. P.; Fassel. V. A. And. Chem. 1981, 53, (52) Dankovic, D. A.; Springer, D. L.; Mnn, D. 6.; Smith, L. G.; ~h~~~, B. L.; Bean, R. M. Carcinogenesis 1989, 10, 789-791. A method for the determination of Au In seawater at femtomolar moi/L) levels Is presented. The technique involves preconcentration by anlon exchange of Au as a cyanide complex, [Au(CN),-1, using lgSAu radiotracer (f,,, = 183 days) to monitor recoverles. Samples are then Introduced by flow injection into an Inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometer for analysis. The method has a detection limit of 4 0 fM for 4 L of seawater preconcentrated to 1 mL and a relative preclslon of 15 % at the 100 fM level. With slight modifications, It can also be applied to the analysis of hydrothermal flulds and freshwaters. Koide and co-workers have recently reported concentrations of Au in Pacific seawater samples on the order of 100 f M (I). Using the analytical method described here, we have independently confirmed levels of 10-100 f M Au in seawater a t Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea locations

Gold

“…The abundances of Au in the Earth's crust and in seawater are estimated to be 3.5 -5 mg kg À1 (Ishida and Orimo 1994) and 50 -100 pg kg À1 (Koide et al 1984, Falkner andEdmond 1990), respectively. The gold contents in sea waters and river waters vary over a wide range of concentrations (from 0.03 -3.0 to 0.19 -119 ng L À1 ), depending on the areas where samples are collected (Cidu 1994, Gomez Gometz andMcLeod 1995).…”

Determination of gold in geothermal water by anion exchange and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

“…Although Falkner and Edmond (1990) used hot (90°C) nitric acid as the eluent, this method was not applied on account of operational ease. Figure 1 shows an elution profile for gold from a column packed with the gold-adsorbing anion exchange resin.…”

“…In our preliminary experiment, however, the direct solvent extraction of gold from geo thermal water samples was found to be impossible because of the precipitation of a large amount of silica at the interface between the organic solvent and the water phases (geothermal water generally contains several hundreds mg/l of silicic acid (as SiO2). On the other hand, McHugh (1986) and Falkner and Edmond (1990) reported gold preconcentration techniques using an anion ex change resin. However, in order to use this method for geothermal water, some operating conditions (such as adsorption of gold on the resin, desorp tion, concentration of gold in the effluent, etc.)…”

Spectrophotometric Determination of Trace Amount of Copper(II) Ion Based on Complexation with an Anthraquinone Derivative

“…In the determination of copper, various methods, including inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, [1][2][3][4] ion chromatography, [5][6][7] anodic stripping analysis [8][9][10][11][12] and atomic absorption spectrophotometry [13][14][15][16] have been used. Many of these methods are either time-consuming or require complicated and expensive instruments.…”