Hi there! As I understand it, it is standard practice to acidify filtered water samples down to less than pH 2 before introduction to ICP (for metals analysis). The main rationale for this is repeatedly stated to be "keeping metals of interest in solution". I am wondering, however, how useful the dissolved metals concentrations that result from these ICP analyses really are, considering that the analysis conditions are obviously far different from those of ambient waters (which are not at a pH of 2!). Wouldn't this result in a major overestimation of the concentration of dissolved metals in the ambient environment?
Hope to get a conversation going about this. Thank you!