Analysis of arsenic and calcium in soil samples by laser ablation mass spectrometry

Ion Mobility Spectrometry of Gas-Phase Ions from Laser Ablation of Solids in Air at Ambient Pressure

“…Laser ablation can be used to probe the chemical composition of solid samples through the determination of gaseous neutrals or ions formed when a surface is exposed to laser radiation. [1][2][3][4][5] Though samples are analyzed under vacuum typically with mass spectrometry (MS), ablation may also occur in a supporting atmosphere of air or other gases at elevated pressures. Ions can be produced from ablated vapors though photo-ionization with the same laser used in the ablation step 6 or through gas-phase ion-molecule reactions with a second ion source such as a beta-emitter.…”

The Use of Hyphenated Spectrometric Techniques for the Environmental Forensic Assessment of Non-Traditional Pollutants and Degradates in the Greater Florida Everglades

“…The use of UV-ns-laser ablation ICP-MS improved the limit of detection (LOD) of metals in about 1 to 2 order of magnitude versus previous reported work conducted by IR-ns-LA-ICP-OES (Musil et al, 2000) and LA-MS (Beccaglia et al, 2006).…”

“…About a dozen manuscripts have been published in the last 13 years discussing the use of LA-ICP-MS and, to a lesser extent, LA-ICP-OES for the analysis of soils and sediments (Litche 1995;Hoffman 1997;Baker et al, 1999;Musil et al, 2000;Klem et al, 2001;Tao et al, 2002;Mikolas et al, 2002;Boulyga et al, 2004;Gilon 2005;Beccaglia et al, 2006;Hubova et al, 2007;Fernandez et al, 2008).…”

“…The presence of large particles requires the use of either large laser spot sizes (of about 1 -2 mm) which may not be available in some UV-lasers; or the ablation of numerous craters (30-100 craters) to achieve a representative sampling of the bulk soil, which may not be practical in terms of time of analysis (Hofmman et al, 1997). Reported accuracy on laser ablation of soils has been generally ≤ 20% and ranging from 5 to 100% depending on many variables such as elements under study, sample preparation, concentration range, standard reference materials and calibration strategies (Litche 1995;Hoffman 1997;Baker et al, 1999;Musil et al, 2000;Klem et al, 2001;Tao et al, 2002;Mikolas et al, 2002;Boulyga et al, 2004;Gilon 2005;Beccaglia et al, 2006;Hubova et al, 2007;Fernandez et al, 2008).…”

“…Some limitations remain on the existing methods; such as: a) these are either optimized for single element determinations (Tao et al, 2002;Boulyga et al, 2004) or for a limited suite of elements (Hubova et al, 2007;Mikolas et al, 2002;Boulyga et al, 2004;Fernandez et al, 2004), b) sample preparation compromises the quantitation of volatile compounds (Litche 1995), c) sample preparation remains labor intensive (Hubova et al, 2007;Musil et al, 2000;Mikolas et al, 2002), and/or requires the use of binders (Musil et al, 2000;Beccaglia et al, 2006;Mikolas et al, 2002;Mason et al, 2006;Boulyga et al, 2004), d) complex or expensive quantitation strategies are required to improve accuracy and precision (Baker et al, 1999;Hoffman et al, 1997;Hubova et al, 1997;Boulyga et al, 2004) or e) the effect of sample heterogeneity has not been effectively addressed (Hofmman et al, 1997;Klem et al, 2001;Boulyga et al, 2004;Fernandez et al, 2008).…”