Analytical Techniques for Trace Elements in Geochemical Exploration

Book excerpt: Trace element analysis plays a prominent role in various fields, from mineralogy and geology to semiconductor manufacture and foods. In geochemical exploration, the analysis of trace elements assumes high significance due to the multifaceted role played by them. The analyte is at the detection limit of many instrumental techniques. This makes their determination difficult This book covers a wide spectrum of destructive and non-destructive analytical techniques and recent developments in them used all over the world, including developing countries, for quantitation of trace elements. With revolutionary progress in the last three to four decades in analytical techniques, several ICP-based techniques like ICP-OES and ICP-MS and other nuclear analytical techniques have enabled determination of trace elements at the ppb level. However, these methods require expensive instrumentation and cannot be made available everywhere. The quality of analytical data is dependent on valid reference standards. The book contains detailed sample preparation in varying matrices and an important chapter on statistical treatment of analytical data for the purpose of quality control and quality assurance. Pulling together, the book, containing the work carried out by the author’s group in India, will be useful to analysts involved in geochemical explorations.