Samples with PGE content are chemically inert. They are therefore difficult to prepare for ICP analysis.
Precious Platinum Group Elements (PGEs)
Platinum Group Elements (PGEs) are considered the most valuable precious metals.
For this reason, they are often used for jewelry and ornament purposes. They also play an important role in the automotive catalytic converter production. PGEs possess properties to convert car emission in less toxic compounds.
Chemically inert
Samples with PGE content are chemically inert. They are therefore difficult to prepare for ICP analysis.
Hot plate systems are often not the right solution since they don’t provide the necessary temperature and pressure to assure complete digestion. Furthermore they suffer from airborne contamination, long running programs and poor recovery of volatile compounds.
Achieving temperature and pressure conditions
The “Closed Vessel” microwave digestion has proven to be an effective technique with improved fast digestion, cleaner environment and full recovery of volatile compounds.
Nonetheless, the high temperature and pressure requirements lead frequent consumable replacements in conventional microwave units.
Milestone’s UltraWAVE is the only system able to achieve this temperature and pressure conditions with its unique Single Reaction Chamber SRC – without the need for frequent replacements.
Download the Milestone Application Report below. It was developed to digest pure Rhodium powder and Rh, Ru and Ir sponge samples used in the automotive catalytic converter production.
