Rare Earth Elements Analysis in Drinking Water by ICP-MS

Objective To explore the method of detecting rare earth elements (REEs) in drinking water with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and to analyze the concentrations of REEs in tap water in urban Beijing. Methods The collected drinking water samples were diluted with 2% nitric acid; appropriate rate of gas flow was selected to overcome the influence of impurities on stability; while rhodium (Rh) was used as an online internal standard to conquer the impact of instrumental fluctuation and matrix effect. Under optimal parameters of instrumentation, the recovery rate was calculated by standard addition.Results The coefficient of linear correlation was above 0.9996 and the limit of detection was 0.002~0.12 μg/L, the recover was 85.6%~114.4% and the RSD was below 10%. Conclusion The method established in this study was accurate and stable, and was facilitated for analyzing REEs in drinking water conveniently and quickly.