Determination of 5 sorts of rare earth elements in tea.

Objective To establish a rapid and sensitive method which can determine 5 sorts of rare earth elements in tea by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry(ICP-MS) method. Methods The samples were determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry(ICP-AES) and ICP-MS with microwave digestion and wet digestion. Microwave digestion procedure and ICP-MS instrument condition were optimized. Results The recoveries of rare earth elements determined by ICP-MS with microwave digestion were 97.65%~103.28%(n=6), while the detection limits were 0.06~0.18 μg/kg. Conclusion Determination of rare earth elements in tea by ICP-MS with microwave digestion had many advantages, such as high sensitivity and high selectivity, accurate quantification, high precision and accuracy, high reproducibility and high recovery rate, which was suitable for the detection of rare earth elements in tea.