Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) of Japanese Quince Biomass

Trace elements and minerals are essential to the biological processes of all living things, including humans and other mammals. However, the presence of inorganic elements could complicate the processing of Japanese quince biomass and affect the quality of the end products. ICP-MS is one of the most recommended techniques for trace element analysis.
Method
An ICP-MS system (iCAP TQe , Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Bremen, Germany) equipped with PFA nebulizer and connected with ASX-560 autosampler was used to analyze the contents of 30 elements in the samples. The plasma power was 1549 w, an argon flow of 14 mL/min, an auxiliary gas flow of 0.8 mL/min. The peristaltic pump speed of the ICP-MS was set to 70 rpm. The instrument control software used was Qtegra™. External calibration (shown in file ICP-MS _data_standards) was performed using multielement standard solutions (ICP multi-element standard solution XVI (21 elements), Supelco, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany and ICP multi-element standard solution IX (9 elements), Supelco, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany in 2% nitric acid (v/v) at the following element concentration levels: 0, 0.4, 1.3, 3.8, 11.4, 34.3, 102.9, 308.6, 925.9, 25000 µg/L.
0.50 g of the Japanese quince leaves and twigs and 0.25 g of the Japanese quince fruit, pulp and peels were introduced into the Teflon vessels. For inorganic evaluation, the Japanese quince samples further were digested using microwaves within a closed system (CEM MARS 6, Mathews, NC, USA) at 200°C using 6 mL of HNO3, 2 mL of H2O2. After cooling, the vessels were transferred to volumetric flasks and the volume was made up with 50 mL of deionized water and strained using a 0.2 μm glass fiber PTFE filter. Samples were prepared and tested with three replicates.
Data
The data was processed with Qtegra software (Thermo Scientific), and the file ICP-MS _data_samples was composed of the representative trace element profiles of specific Japanese quince biomass (twigs, leaves, fruits, peels): trace element vs. concentration (mg/100g).