Recent advances in the determination of the platinum group elements and gold

Accurate determinations of the platinum group elements (PGEs) and gold, known as the precious metals, have always been difficult tasks. The metals are often present at trace levels in sample types of complex composition. This situation has improved recently due to developments of instrumental methods and their applications to analyses of the precious metals in a variety of matrices. Attention has been given to determinations of traces of precious metals in biological, clinical and environmental samples. Foremost in importance is inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) which has provided a sensitive means of simultaneous determination of traces of PGEs and gold. Important extensions and improvements in atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), nuclear and electrochemical methods have been reported also. More research on sample treatments, especially fire assays, applied to PGEs has been carried out. Chlorination has proven to be a viable alternative to fire assays for preconcentration of PGEs and gold in analyses of geological materials. In addition, the recent availability of some additional reference materials will be of great assistance in research work on precious metals. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.