Title: qualitative elemental specificity Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - qualitative elemental specificity DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.Q04974 Status: current Definition Ability of a method to detect one element in the presence of another element. Source - PAC, 1979, 51, 2243. 'General aspects of trace analytical methods—IV. Recommendations for nomenclature, standard procedures and reporting of experimental data for surface analysis techniques' on page 2247 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac197951112243) Other Outputs - html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/Q04974/html - json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/Q04974/json - xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/Q04974/xml Citation: Citation: 'qualitative elemental specificity' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.Q04974 License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. Accessed: 2026-05-17T23:42:27+00:00