Trace Metals

The ICP/MS instrument allows detection of trace metals to parts per trillion.

Trace metals are metals with concentrations of 1,000 parts per million or less. These concentrations are regulated because of the potential for toxicity to animals, plants, and people if ingested in excess quantities. Examples of trace metals include iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, chromium, nickel, cobalt, vanadium, arsenic, molybdenum, and selenium.

Products such as multi-vitamins and plant fertilizers may both contain trace metals as a healthy supplement. Trace metals are depleted through the expenditure of energy by a living organism. They are replenished in animals by eating plants, and replenished in plants through the uptake of nutrients from the soil in which the plant grows.

The compounds are separated using reductive precipitation, following by use of the ICP/MS (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy) instrument.

Learn about metal speciation...