Precious Metal Analysis of High Magnetite Content Ore and Mine Tailing Samples by ICP-MS

摘要

Traditionally, analysis of precious metals in typical automobile catalysts or similar materials involves fusing and digesting the sample, re-precipitating the precious metals by tellurium collection, re-digesting the co-precipitate, and finally analyzing the solution by ICP-AES. Complex sample matrices can typically be reduced to simpler compositions by the tellurium collection method. However, materials containing low ppm to ppb level of precious metals present a problem for ICP-AES due to limited sensitivity. In this study, concentrated high magnetite content ore and ore tailing samples containing low levels of precious metals were analyzed using the tellurium collection technique but modified by using ICP-MS for analysis. ICP-MS was chosen because of its high sensitivity and dynamic range.