Determination of Selenium and Tellurium in Basalt Rock Reference Materials by Isotope Dilution Hydride Generation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ID-HG-ICP-MS)

Promising methods have been developed recently for the determination of selenium (Se) and tellurium (Te) in geological materials at ng g(-1) and lower levels, using hydride generation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Here we report on a new isotope dilution-hydride generation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ID-HG-ICP-MS) method for the simultaneous determination of Se and Te, which is applied to basalts, and modified compared to previous work. The basalts were attacked and dissolved with hydrofluoric and nitric acid, spiked with enriched isotopes, and passed through a cation exchange column (AG 50-X8 100-200 mesh) to separate the major cations that interfere with Se and Te detection (e.g., Fe). The detection limits of this method were 0.010 ng g(-1) for Se and 0.0030 ng g(-1) for Te, well below the concentrations of Se and Te expected in basalts. The precision of the method for Se was 12.2 to 15.1% and for Te was 4.6 to 7.2% RSD from replicate analyses of basalt reference samples. The accuracy for Se determinations was 61 to 94% and for Te 28 to 100% of values previously reported in the literature for selected USGS reference materials.