Rare earth elements (REEs) are increasingly important in the production of high-specification electronic devices, and their discovery requires a rapid and cost-effective screening of survey samples for REE content, as greater resolution of a survey area would necessitate analysis of hundreds/thousands of samples per day. Traditionally, inorganic analysis of geological survey samples calls for acid digestion, potentially even requiring several different approaches depending on rock/mineral composition, with time and safety implications. It also requires large volumes of acid, producing extensive chemical waste, making this approach unsuitable.
Many mining discovery samples are already routinely fused into beads for XRF analysis to determine bulk/major composition. Laser ablation (LA) of these fused beads would bypass the need for acid digestion and reduce waste and resource consumption. And although LA-ICP-MS was previously a low volume, labor-intensive technique, coupling ESI’s LaserTRAX laser ablation sample introduction system with PerkinElmer’s NexION® 5000 Multi-Quadrupole ICP-MS provides a unique combination of automated, fast sample-to-sample load times and precise analysis for both major and minor elements within these fused beads.