Comparison of Open Digestion Methods for the Determination of Rare Earth Elements in Plant Samples by ICP-MS

An analytical procedure for the reliable determination of rare earth elements (REEs) in plant samples by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was developed. The influence of the main matrix elements was investigated first. It was established that moderate amounts (0.1–1.0%) of dissolved solids decreased the REEs signals significantly. Internal standardization with indium proved to be useful for obtaining correct results. Various digestion procedures were next applied to converting various solid plant samples to aqueous solution, namely dry-ashing, dry-ashing including a hydrofluoric acid (HF) step, and wet digestion using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and nitric acid (HNO3). Obtained results showed that the simple dry-ashing procedure was sufficient for plants. A certified reference material (BCR-670, aquatic plant) was used to validate the accuracy of the method. Relative standard deviations varied from 1% (holmium, gadolinium) to 4% (europium). Detection limits between 13 (lanthanum) and 0.02 ng L−1 (lutetium) were achieved.