Determination of vanadium in water samples by reaction cell inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry

An inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometer (ICP-QMS) equipped with a dynamic reaction cell (DRC) was used for the determination of vanadium and its species in water samples. The effect of the operating conditions of the DRC system was studied in order to obtain the best signal to noise ratios. The potentially interfering (ClO+)-Cl-35-O-16 and (SOH+)-S-34-O-16 at the vanadium m/z value of 51 were reduced in intensity by approximately four orders of magnitude by using NH3 as the reaction cell gas in the DRC. The detection limit for V-51 was 0.006 ng ml(-1). In addition, reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatography (LC) was coupled with ICP-MS for the determination of various vanadium species. The limits of detection for V-IV and V-V were 0.007 and 0.013 ng ml(-1) V at m/z 51, respectively, based on peak height. This method was applied to the determination of vanadium in NRCC SLRS-3 Riverine Water reference sample, NRCC SLEW-2 Estuarine Water reference sample and water samples collected locally. The result for the reference sample SLRS-3 agreed satisfactorily with the reference value. The results for which no reference values were available were also found to have satisfactory recoveries. The recovery was in the range of 87-109% and the precision between sample replicates was better than 14% for all the determinations.