Electrothermal vaporization coupled with inductively coupled plasma array–detector mass spectrometry for the multielement analysis of Al 2O 3 ceramic powders

• Published in: Spectrochimica acta. Part B: Atomic spectroscopy Vol. 61; no. 1; pp. 42 - 49
• Main Authors: Peschel, Birgit U., Andrade, Francisco, Wetzel, William C., Schilling, Gregory D., Hieftje, Gary M., Broekaert, José A.C., Sperline, Roger, Denton, M. Bonner, Barinaga, Charles J., Koppenaal, David W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2006
• Subjects: Array detector mass spectrometry; Electrothermal vaporization; Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; Electrothermal vaporization; Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; Array detector mass spectrometry
• ISSN: 0584-8547; 1873-3565
• DOI: 10.1016/j.sab.2005.11.007

An electrothermal vaporization (ETV) system useful for the analysis of solutions and slurries has been coupled with a sector-field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP–MS) equipped with an array detector. The ability of this instrument to record the transient signals produced for a number of analytes in ETV–ICP–MS is demonstrated. Detection limits for Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Ga are in the range of 4–60 pg μL − 1 for aqueous solutions and in the low μg g − 1 range for the analysis of 10 mg mL − 1 slurries of Al 2O 3 powders. The dynamic ranges measured for Fe, Cu and Ga spanned 3–5 orders of magnitude when the detector was operated in the low-gain mode and appear to be limited by the ETV system. Trace amounts of Fe, Cu and Ga could be directly determined in Al 2O 3 powders at the 2–270 μg g − 1 level without the use of thermochemical reagents. The results well agree with literature values for Fe and Cu, whereas deviations of 50% at the 90 μg g − 1 level for Ga were found.