Determination of minor and trace elements in urine reference sample by a combined system of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

Simultaneous multielement determination of minor and trace elements in the urine reference sample by an ICP-MS/AES combined system is described. The biological reference sample of NIST SRM 2670 Freeze-dried Human Urine (elevated) was used for analysis. The sample preparation was kept to a minimum: the urine sample was diluted 25-fold with 0.1 M nitric acid, in which Ge, In and Tl were added as the internal standard elements. Eighteen elements at the mu g/ml-ng/ml levels were simultaneously determined by the present combined system. In addition, the present combined system was also applied to the correction of polyatomic interference in the determination of chromium in SRM 2670, where interference with Cr-52 due to (ArC)-Ar-40-C-12 was corrected by estimating the correction factor of (ArC)-Ar-40-C-12 from correlation between the ion count of (ArC)-Ar-40-C-12 and the emission intensity of carbon in the sample.