Development of inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry for palladium and rhodium determination in platinum-based alloy

Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) with internal standardization was applied for the analysis of an in-house reference platinum alloy containing palladium and rhodium (approximately 5% by weight). In order to compensate for variations in signal recovery due to matrix interferences, and therefore to improve the precision, platinum, the major component, was chosen as an internal standard. Quantitative analysis was based on calibration using a set of matrix-matched calibration standards with and without employing the internal standard. These results were compared with those obtained by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy. The results for both techniques were in a good agreement, although the precision was slightly better in the ICP-AES technique, with or without the internal standard.