Abstract:Metal chromium serves as a crucial raw material for diverse high-temperature alloys and stainless steels. The accurate detection of the contents of key trace elements in raw materials of chromium metal holds significant importance for the quality control during the research and development, production, and application processes of high-temperature alloys and stainless steel materials. This study focuses on the problem of multi-atomic ion, oxide ion, and double charged ion interferences in chromium matrix and acidic medium. Based on the valence bond theory applied to inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS), a highly sensitive and accurate method for determining the contents of 12 key trace elements in metal chromium by ICP-MS/MS has been established. The result suggest that the trace metal elements Al+^, Fe+^{, Cu}+^{, and} Zn+ form complexes with NH3 in a coordination mode, whereas the non-metal elements P+ ^{and As}+ ^{form oxides with O}2 through covalent σ bonds. The mass spectrometric interferences of Al, Fe, Cu, Zn, P, and As in metal chromium have been effectively eliminated by measuring the mass spectrometric signals of the corresponding product ions. The detection limits reach as low as 0.10 μg/g, with the relative standard deviations range from 0.9% to 5.2%. The recovery rates are within the range of 90.0% to 107.0%, and the determined results are consistent with those of high resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The valence bond theory is further expanded and applied to the precise and highly reliable detection of trace elements in other high-purity metal materials such as nickel by ICP-MS/MS.