Improved inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy analysis of trace elements in complex matrices by chemometric resolution

Abstract

Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry is a well-known technique for elemental analysis. However, in the analysis of trace elements in complex matrices, the signals can easily be interfered by those of other elements and drift the baseline. In this work, a chemometric approach was employed for the identification and quantitative analysis of trace elements in complex matrices. With the help of standard signals, the signals of trace elements can be obtained by a non-negative immune algorithm and used for the quantitative analysis. The method was validated by the analysis of trace calcium in rare earth matrices, trace bismuth, lead, and antimony in a tungsten matrix, trace phosphorus in iron and copper matrices and urban recycled water samples. The recoveries of the spiked samples were in the range of 96.1% to 108.3%.