New IMM report
Lithium, boron, cesium and other potentially toxic metals in Swedish well water
Authors: Florencia Harari, Lena Maxe, Marie Vahter
There are no reported data on concentrations of lithium and stable cesium (not radioactive) in Swedish well water, and limited data on boron concentrations. The main aim of this study was to fill those gaps in knowledge. To that end we measured those elements in about 600 samples of well water, most of which were collected 10 years ago by the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU) for their publication: Natural radioactivity, uranium and other metals in drinking water (Naturlig radioaktivitet, uran och andra metaller i dricksvatten; Ek et al. 2007). The data have also been published as SSI rapport 2008:15 (Ek et al. 2008).
We measured the element concentrations by modern inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), by which it is possible to obtain sensitive measures of a large number of elements simultaneously in the same sample. Thus, we also measured a number of elements not previously measured. For comparison with previously reported concentrations, we measured a number of other elements in the water samples which would provide a useful inter-laboratory comparison of elements in drinking water.