A new method for high-precision palladium isotope analyses of iron meteorites and other metal samples

Abstract

This paper presents a new method for high precision Pd isotope analyses in iron meteorites. First, Pd is separated from the sample matrix by a novel two-stage anion exchange procedure after which isotopic measurements are carried out using MC-ICP-MS. Analyses of doped standard solutions show that isobaric interference from Ru and Cd can be adequately corrected for Ru/Pd < 0.0005 and Cd/Pd < 0.025. This is frequently achieved using the presented separation method. The purified Pd fraction after ion exchange chromatography is also sufficiently devoid of Ni (Ni/Pd < 0.04), Zr (Zr/Pd < 0.0002) and Zn (Zn/Pd < 0.06) for precise and accurate measurements because these elements produce molecular interference on the masses of the Pd isotopes. An external reproducibility of 1.29 for ε¹⁰²Pd, 0.22 for ε¹⁰⁴Pd, 0.11 for ε¹⁰⁶Pd, and 0.27 for ε¹¹⁰Pd is calculated based on the repeated analyses of five independently processed aliquots of the IAB iron meteorite Toluca. The method was verified by the analysis of three metals from IVB iron meteorites and the results show excellent agreement with previous data. The new method enables accurate analysis of all Pd isotopes, and in particular ¹⁰²Pd, which is of major interest for cosmochemical applications.