Heat-Assisted Argon Electrospray Interface for Low-Flow Rate Liquid Sample Introduction in Plasma Spectrometry

Published

September 4, 2009

Author(s)

Ryan G. Brennan, Savelas A. Rabb, Gregory C. Turk, Kaveh Jorabchi, William Rutkowski, Akbar Montaser

Abstract

A heated ({approximately equal}90 °C) laminar flow interface has been designed to assist in the development of an electrospray sample introduction system for low-flow applications using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometry. This approach improves the analytical performance of the ICP compared to the use of gas mixtures (e.g., Ar-N2) and more concentrated organic solvents (e.g., 50 % methanol-water), typically required to achieve stable electrospray formation. The turbulence and the consequent droplet loss caused by high gas velocity around the electrospray capillary are eliminated by using a laminar-flow nebulizer gas with the aid of a flow diffuser. With the current design, a stable spray of 5 % methanol-water in a pure argon environment is achieved and successfully installed on an ICP optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and on an ICP mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) for the first time.

Citation

Analytical Chemistry

Volume

81

Issue

19

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

"electrospray", "ICP spectrometry", "low-flow rate", "sample introduction"

Citation

Brennan, R. , Rabb, S. , Turk, G. , Jorabchi, K. , Rutkowski, W. and Montaser, A. (2009), Heat-Assisted Argon Electrospray Interface for Low-Flow Rate Liquid Sample Introduction in Plasma Spectrometry, Analytical Chemistry, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=902408 (Accessed October 22, 2025)