Classification of Chemical Elements in the Reaction Cell of ICP-MS Based on the Affinities with Sulfur, Oxygen, and Fluorine

Abstract

Classification of chemical elements in the reaction cell of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) was first reported based on the affinities with multiple elements, i.e. sulfur, oxygen, and fluorine. The data were summarized in the periodic table based on the affinity with each of the three elements mentioned above. An example of the application of the present results was illustrated by analyzing Y and La in the matrix of Sr and Ba, offering apparently improved background equivalent concentration (BEC) and detection limits (DL). Keywords: Classification | Chemical element | Reaction cellSeparation of spectral interferences is one of the key issues for elemental measurement by using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS), which is a well-developed instrument capable of simultaneous measurement of multiple elements in a wide linearity range up to nine orders of magnitude. Reaction cell technique offers an effective approach for the separation of spectral interferences in the measurement by ICP-MS. 15 In order to achieve specific separations of various spectral interferences, some kinds of gases had been explored as the reaction gas in the reaction cell of ICP-MS, including H 2 , O 2 , NH 3 , CH 3 F, N 2 H 6 , N 2 O, CO, NO, and SF 6 .5 A systematic investigation of the ion-molecule reactions in the reaction cell will provide useful information for the development of a method for separating spectral interferences. However, it was difficult to elucidate the ion-molecule reactions by using a traditional ICP-MS instrument with a single quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) since the ionic species entering the reaction cell were extremely complicated, including polyatomic ions from the matrix of the sample, the solvent, the argon plasma gas, and the constituents of air.Detailed work on multiple elements in the periodic table had been carried out regarding the reactions with oxygen and fluoromethane, respectively, based on laboratory-developed selected ion flow tube (SIFT) ICP-MS. 68 In these studies, both atom attachment and molecule attachment have been observed with oxygen and fluoromethane, respectively, as the reaction cell gas. High-order reactions with attachment of multiple molecules had also been observed for some elements. Such kinds of information benefit the built up of spectral separation strategies in ICP-MS measurement. It is notable that SIFT-ICP-MS was developed in the Bohme group and was not commercially available for common ICP-MS users.In recent years, the commercial availability of ICP-QMS/ QMS, i.e. ICP-MS with a pair of QMS and an octapole reaction cell (ORC), makes it possible to investigate in detail ionmolecule reactions in the reaction cell by common ICP-MS users. The first QMS (QMS1) of the ICP-QMS/QMS instrument permits the ions with selected mass-to-charge (m/z) ratio to enter the ORC and to react with the reaction gas molecules so as to exclude the interferences from ionic species with unwanted m/z ratios, which were problematic when a traditional ICP-MS...

90Sr bioassay in small-volume urine by ICP-MS/MS with CO2 as the reaction gas

“…These findings indicated that the reaction between Sr and O 2 was predominately confined to the affinity of one oxygen atom to one Sr atom. 24…”

“…These results indicated that the reaction between Zr and O 2 was not only confined to the affinity of one oxygen atom to one Zr atom. 21,24,25 Further oxygen atom transfer also occurred, even forming ZrO 3 + . The ion ratio of ZrO 3 + increased sharply from 0.09% (10% flow rate) to 25.41% (100% flow rate).…”

“…These ndings indicated that the reaction between Sr and O 2 was predominately conned to the affinity of one oxygen atom to one Sr atom. 24 Compared with the reaction between Sr and O 2 , the reaction between Zr and O 2 produced more kinds of polyatomic ions (Fig. S3A and B †).…”

Gas‐Phase Ion‐Molecule Interactions in a Collision Reaction Cell with ICP‐MS/MS: Investigations with CO2 as the Reaction Gas

“…2006, Sugiyama and Nakano 2014, Bolea‐Fernandez et al . 2015, Zhu 2018, Resano et al . 2020, Harouaka et al .…”

“…2015, Yamada 2015, Bolea‐Fernandez et al . 2017, Zhu 2018). These separations occur inline during the measurement, which results in quicker and more effective analyses.…”