Determination of seventeen elements in stainless steels by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Linear scanning mode ablation was used as sampling strategy,and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(LA-ICP-MS)was used for quantitative determination of major,minor and trace elements in stainless steels.The effect of carrier gas in laser ablation cell and its flow,the frequency of laser pulse,the aperture of laser ablation and the output energy density of laser on analytical properties were investigated.The parameters of laser ablation were optimized.The matrix57Fe was used as internal standard to correct the elemental fractionation and sensitivity drifting.The stainless steel crumb certified reference materials for wet analysis were embedded in curing agent such as epoxy resin to prepare assemble-type reference sample as calibration samples.Accordingly,the calibration curve was established.The results showed that,except for P and Pb whose linear correlation coefficient of calibration curve was 0.978 2and 0.967 9respectively,the correlation coefficients of other elements were all higher than 0.99.Detection limit of elements was 0.02-39.71μg/g.The proposed method was applied to the determination of stainless steel certified reference materials,and the results were consistent with the certified values.Except for Al and Pb in sample BS CA 316-4,the relative standard deviations(RSD,n=5)of elements were all less than 10%.Considering the low content of P,its RSD of 10.3%could meet the requirements.