A Method to Suppress Isobaric and Polyatomic Interferences for Measurements of Highly Siderophile Elements in Desilicified Geological Samples

Abstract

Sample decomposition using inverse aqua regia at elevated temperatures and pressures (e.g., Carius tube or high‐pressure asher) is the most common method used to extract highly siderophile elements (HSEs: Ru, Rh, Pd, Re, Os, Ir, Pt and Au) from geological samples. Recently, it has been recognised that additional HF desilicification is necessary to better recover HSEs, potentially contained within silicate or oxide minerals in mafic samples, which cannot be dissolved solely by inverse aqua regia. However, the abundance of interfering elements tends to increase in the eluent when conventional ion‐exchange purification procedures are applied to desilicified samples. In this study, we developed an improved purification method to determine HSEs in desilicified samples. This method enables the reduction of the ratios of isobaric and polyatomic interferences, relative to the measured intensities of HSE isotope masses, to less than a few hundred parts per million. Furthermore, the total procedural blanks are either comparable to or lower than conventional methods. Thus, this method allows accurate and precise HSE measurements in mafic and ultramafic geological samples, without the need for interference corrections. Moreover, the problem of increased interfering elements, such as Zr for Pd and Cr for Ru, is circumvented for the desilicified samples.