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Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Optical Emission Spectroscopy, ICP-AESOES, is a method to perform elemental analysis on a sample in solution (ODP Technical Note 29). This manual covers hard rock sample preparation for ICP-AES OES analysis. Hard rock samples are prepared via the 'flux fusion' approach. This technique ensures complete dissolution of sample allowing a full elemental analysis. Solutions are stable which allows further analysis, and involves no HF making it a safe and ideal method (ODP Technical Note 29).
Rock samples are crushed to a fine, talc-like powder using multiple cleaning, crushing and grinding procedures. After grinding, loss on ignition (LOI) is determined. Ignited material is fused with flux powder forming a glass sample bead. Fused beads are then dissolved in 10% HNO3 . This is further diluted and the resulting solution is processed by the ICP-AES OES machine.
The complete process (from sample table to ICP-AES OES machine) takes 3-4 days. Day 1 involves: polishing on the Diamond Wheel, cleaning, and drying samples overnight. Day 2: Crushing in the X-Press, grinding in the Shatterbox, a pre-ignition (for LOI) weight, and placing samples in the furnace overnight. Day 3-4: Taking a post-ignition (for LOI) weight, and fusing the sample bead. The beads are handed off to the chemistry technicians to continue ICP analysis.
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