Elemental Analysis
The ICP-MS allows determination of elements with atomic mass ranges 7 to 250. This encompasses Li to U. Some masses are prohibited such as 40 due to the abundance of argon in the sample. Other blocked regions may include mass 80 (due to the argon dimer), and mass 56 (due to ArO), the latter of which greatly hinders Fe analysis unless the instrumentation is fitted with a reaction chamber.
A typical ICP-MS will be able to detect in the region of nanograms per litre to 10 or 100 milligrams per litre or around 8 orders of magnitude of concentration units.
Unlike atomic absorption spectroscopy, which can only measure a single element at a time ICP-MS has the capability to scan for all elements simultaneously. This allows rapid sample processing. A simultaneous ICP-MS that can record the entire analytical spectrum from lithium to uranium in every analysis won the Silver Award at the 2010 Pittcon Editors' Awards.
Read more about this topic: Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
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