Recent important applications of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in biological samples analysis are reviewed.The sample preparation,sample introduction techniques,interference correction and typical applications are introduced in detail with 154 references.

A method for the determination of impurities in high pure Nd_2O_3 employing inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS) was established, and emphasise was put on the elimination of matrix induced NdO~+ and NdOH~+ spectral interferences using cell collision technology(CCT). Using 10% O_2-10% Ar-80% He as the reaction/collision gas and with proper adjustment of the instrumental parameters, ~(159)Tb,~(165)Ho,~(163)Dy could be quantified at ~(175)TbO,~(179)DyO and ~(181)HoO respectively, while the matrix induced NdO~+ and NdOH~+ spectral interferences could be reduced by 25-70 folds. In addition, different elements were tested as internal standards for matrix effect correction under the CCT mode, and it was found that Re was best. Other impurities including La, Ce, Sm, Eu, Gd, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu were detected under conventional mode, except that Pr was detected under high instrumental resolution mode to eliminate peak tailing interference from Nd. In combination with mathematic correction, the established method can be applied for the determination of impurities in 99.999% Nd_2O_3 products with satisfactory RSDs and recoveries.

A new method for determination of trace Cu, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cd, Fe and Pb impurities in high pure tin oxide material was proposed. 0. 1 g of sample was successfully digested at 230℃ in 3 h when autoclaves with high pressure and high temperature were used. After that, over 99. 9% of the matrix Sn was removed by chloride volatilization at 150℃ for 1. 5 h, which eliminated the matrix effect and spectra interference in the following ICP-MS detection. The recoveries for all the analytes of the spiked test were 100%±5%, the RSDs for 6 runs of sample analysis were from 0. 09% to 3. 68%, and the limits of detection (LOD, 3σ) were from 0. 002 mg/kg to 0. 034 mg/kg, which indicated that the established method were of both accuracy and high sensitivity, and could be applied for the analysis of samples with purity up to 6N. Finally, three samples specified with 4N purity were analyzed by this method.