It depends on the analytical technique you are using.

Some sample preparations may contain hydrofluoric acid, in which case you can’t use any type of glass. Polypropylene and Teflon containers are common for ICP-MS because of the lower elemental extractables. In addition to Na, B and Si glass leaches out other elements in trace amounts that may be picked up by the sensitive ICP-MS.

What differentiates RSA glass is that it has significantly lower concentrations of the extractables Na Sodium and B Boron, which may not be sufficient for certain applications.

On the other hand, straight ICP-MS is not always used for these types of analyses. Today, many hyphenated HPLC-ICPMS methods are becoming more popular for certain applications where a particular molecular form of an element needs to be measured as opposed to the total amount of the element. An example would be the analysis of methylmercury in biological samples.


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