Introduction
Trace impurities are critical in high-purity tungsten hexacarbonyl and need to be measured. Due to the low concentrations that must be measured, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has long been valued as the technique of choice for analyzing impurities in high-purity tungsten. However, analysis by ICP-MS is challenging due to polyatomic spectral interferences from matrix elements.
Traditionally, these samples are prepared by solid-phase-extraction as a pretreatment to separate the elements contained in highly purified tungsten. An electrothermal vaporization and a collision cell are used to reduce the limits of detection during the determination of trace elements in high-purity tungsten by ICP-MS. The above-mentioned technologies successfully remove some interfering ions. However, they are either time consuming or require additional expensive equipment or complex procedures.
This work demonstrates the ability of the NexION® 1100 ICP-MS to directly and effectively measure 18 elements in tungsten hexacarbonyl. Thanks to a combination of its true-quadrupole Universal Cell, which can control the reaction to ensure that no new interferences are formed, pure ammonia reaction gas can be used to eliminate the matrix interferences on platinum and rhenium, while oxygen reaction gas can be used to eliminate the matrix interferences on mercury, ensuring accurate results.
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