Issue 7, 2017

TiO2 nanomaterial detection in calcium rich matrices by spICPMS. A matter of resolution and treatment

Abstract

High Ca concentrations in complex matrices such as river waters often hamper the detection of titanium nanomaterials (TiO2 NPs) by single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (spICPMS), because of isobaric interference of 48Ca on the most abundant Ti isotope (48Ti). Several approaches were used to reduce this interference while measuring TiO2 in solutions with different Ca concentrations up to 100 mg L−1. ICP-MS/MS was used with ammonia as the reaction cell gas and high resolution (HR) ICP-MS was used under different resolution settings. These approaches were compared by measuring different Ti isotopes (47Ti and 49Ti). spICPMS data were then treated with a deconvolution method to filter out dissolved signals and identify the best approach to detect the lowest possible corresponding spherical size of TiO2 NPs (Dmin). ICP-MS/MS allowed for an important decrease of the theoretical Dmin compared to standard quadrupole ICP-MS, down to 64 nm in ultrapure water; however the sensitivity was reduced by the reaction gas and increasing Ca concentrations also increased the Dmin. The comparably higher sensitivity of HR-ICP-MS allowed for theoretically measuring a Dmin of 10 nm in ultrapure water. Combined with the deconvolution analysis, the highest resolution mode in HR-ICP-MS leads to the lowest Dmin at high Ca concentrations, even though significant broadening of the measured mass distributions occurred for TiO2 NPs at Ca concentrations up to 100 mg L−1.

Graphical abstract: TiO2 nanomaterial detection in calcium rich matrices by spICPMS. A matter of resolution and treatment

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Feb 2017
Accepted
16 May 2017
First published
19 May 2017

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2017,32, 1400-1411

TiO2 nanomaterial detection in calcium rich matrices by spICPMS. A matter of resolution and treatment

M. Tharaud, A. P. Gondikas, M. F. Benedetti, F. von der Kammer, T. Hofmann and G. Cornelis, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2017, 32, 1400 DOI: 10.1039/C7JA00060J

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