Electrothermal vaporization for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectrometry: symbiotic analytical techniques. Invited lecture

Abstract

New techniques have been developed for investigating fundamental phenomena occurring during electrothermal vaporization (ETV) as applied to atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The different nature of electrothermal AAS (ETAAS) and ETV-ICP-MS data make possible the melding of information from both techniques in order to differentiate solid-phase and gas-phase chemical reactions leading to vaporization and atomization and elucidate the mechanism of matrix interferences and the chemistry involved in chemical modification. The significance of chemical modification for ETV-ICP-MS is demonstrated and the use of ETV-ICP-MS in assisting ETAAS for rapid method development is shown. The importance of mass transport effects in ETV-ICP-MS is demonstrated, which indicates that knowledge of the physical and chemical form of the analyte and matrix components is important to the practical application of ETV-ICP-MS to chemical analysis. Non-spectroscopic or matrix interferences in ETV-ICP-MS are more severe than in solution nebulization ICP-MS.