A new set of standards for in–situ measurement of bromine abundances in natural silicate glasses: Application to SR-XRF, LA-ICP-MS and SIMS techniques

Abstract Measuring the low bromine abundances in Earth's materials remains an important challenge in order to constrain the geodynamical cycle of this element. Suitable standard materials are therefore required to establish reliable analytical methods to quantify Br abundances. In this study we characterise 21 Br-doped glasses synthesized from natural volcanic rocks of mafic to silicic compositions, in order to produce a new set of standards for Br analyses using various techniques. The nominal Br contents (amounts of Br loaded in the experimental samples) of 15 of 21 glasses were confirmed within 20% by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Using this new set of standards, we compare three micro-analytical approaches to measure Br contents in silicate glasses: synchrotron X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF), laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). With SR-XRF, the Br contents of the standard glasses were determined with the highest accuracy (  25% for Br ≤ 5 ppm), and high precision (  10 ppm; 20–30% for Br ≤ 10 ppm). The detection limit was estimated to be