Internal standardization with yttrium spectral lines using axial-viewing inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry for plant certified reference materials analysis

The performance of yttrium as internal standard was investigated when aspirating digested samples or alternatively slurries of certified plant reference materials. The stability of the yttrium signal used for analyte signal normalization was examined for three ionic emission lines of yttrium. The results showed that the use of yttrium was beneficial; however for the slurry sample introduction technique it was not equivalently efficient in terms of overall recovery. In this case, the employment of a cyclonic instead of a double-pass spray chamber in combination with yttrium internal standardization leads to quantitative recoveries of the analytes.