Analytical Sciences

Lead Isotopic Compositions of Environmental Certified Reference Materials for an Inter-Laboratory Comparison of Lead Isotope Analysis

Nyein Nyein AUNG, Tsutomu URYU, and Jun YOSHINAGA 

Institute of Environmental Studies, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Lead isotope ratios, viz. ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁶Pb, of the commercially available certified reference materials (CRMs) issued in Japan are presented with an objective to provide a data set, which will be useful for the quality assurance of analytical procedures, instrumental performance and method validation of the laboratories involved in environmental lead isotope ratio analysis. The analytical method used in the present study was inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICPQMS) preceded by acid digestion and with/without chemical separation of lead from the matrix. The precision of the measurements in terms of the relative standard deviation (RSD) of triplicated analyses was 0.19% and 0.14%, for ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁶Pb, respectively. The trueness of lead isotope ratio measurements of the present study was tested with a few CRMs, which have been analyzed by other analytical methods and reported in various literature. The lead isotopic ratios of 18 environmental matrix CRMs (including 6 CRMs analyzed for our method validation) are presented and the distribution of their ratios is briefly discussed.

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