Issue 2, 2005

Operational optimisation of ICP—octopole collision/reaction cell—MS for applications to ultratrace selenium total and speciation determination

Abstract

This paper describes the optimisation of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICPMS) equipped with collision/reaction cell (C/RC) technology for selenium analysis at ultratrace level. Gas flow rates for helium and hydrogen were carefully optimised using experimental design methodology in order to efficiently remove interferences (ArAr+ dimer) while keeping maximum sensitivity on 80Se. A mixture of both gases with 0.5 ml min−1 of He and 3.8 ml min−1 of H2 was selected as the best compromise. Voltage of the different ionic lenses disposed around the C/RC, allowing a better focalisation of the ion beam and kinetic energy discrimination, was also investigated and retained values were: −14 V for quadrupole bias, −13 V for octopole bias, −20 V for cell entrance, −20 V for cell exit and –45 V for plate bias. Detection limits in total analysis are close to 30 ng (Se) l−1 which represents a three times improvement to the ones obtained without C/RC. These conditions were tested with HPLC coupling for speciation of selenite (SeIV), selenate (SeVI), selenomethionine (SeMet) and selenocystine (SeCyst). Depending on selenium species, the detection limits achieved in C/RC mode monitoring 80Se are in the range 70–180 ng (Se) l−1 which represents a 2 times improvement in comparison with 82Se monitoring in standard mode. Accuracy of the method was tested by analysing spiked water and certified reference material (Rain water, TM-Rain95, National water research institute, Canada).

Graphical abstract: Operational optimisation of ICP—octopole collision/reaction cell—MS for applications to ultratrace selenium total and speciation determination

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Jul 2004
Accepted
30 Nov 2004
First published
23 Dec 2004

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2005,20, 88-94

Operational optimisation of ICP—octopole collision/reaction cell—MS for applications to ultratrace selenium total and speciation determination

J. Darrouzès, M. Bueno, G. Lespès and M. Potin-Gautier, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2005, 20, 88 DOI: 10.1039/B410142A

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