The development of TXRF method and its application on the study of trace elements in water at SSRF

• The detection limits obtained in our SR-TXRF are lower than the conventional lab TXRF, which varied from 1.11 pg (Cr) to 0.28 pg (Zn) for K series.
• The reproducibility of target sample is very good.
• Our SR-TXRF results are agreed with that obtained by ICP–MS for some trace elements in water.
• The SR-TXRF experimental setup and the related method are feasible at SSRF.

The objective of this study is the development of Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence (TXRF) method at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). In this paper, the SR-TXRF setup and the related experimental methods and results for the determination of trace elements in water were described. Compared with the conventional lab TXRF, the detection limits obtained in our experiment are very lower due to the advantages of synchrotron radiation, which varied from 1.11 pg (Cr) to 0.28 pg (Zn). The average deviation of the specimen replicates is below 5%, and the deviations of measured element concentrations for Cr, Mn, Co, Ni and Cu by SR-TXRF are within 10% compared with the values by ICP–MS, so our TXRF results are agreed with those obtained by ICP–MS for the detected metals. Based on the results, the SR-TXRF setup and method have been feasible for the quantitative analysis of multi-elements in water at SSRF and that will play an important role in the research area for the environmental liquid samples analysis.