Atomic spectrometry update: review of advances in atomic spectrometry and related techniques

Abstract

This review of 200 references covers developments in ‘Atomic Spectrometry’ published in the twelve months from December 2021 to November 2022 inclusive. It covers atomic emission, absorption, fluorescence and mass spectrometry, but excludes material on speciation and coupled techniques which is included in a separate review. It should be read in conjunction with the previous review¹ and the other related reviews in the series.^1–6 A critical approach to the selection of material has been adopted, with only novel developments in instrumentation, techniques and methodology being included. After several years of consolidation of research in the area of elemental tagging, with very similar variations on the same themes being published, this has now evolved to include detection at the cellular level. This is largely a result of advances in single particle-ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS mapping, coupled with multiple tagging approaches. These combined methods are very useful for diagnostics and imaging and perhaps show the way forward for this type of analysis. A more comprehensive assessment of the range of factors affecting the accuracy of isotope ratio determinations of non-radiogenic isotopes has been in evidence. Where corrections could not be made, some studies specified a range of concentration or molarity in which results remained within tolerance. In the future, this type of assessment should lead to more robust uncertainty estimates and potentially reduce the possibility of samples with erroneous deviations in their stable isotopes measurements.