ETV-ICPMS for Analysis of Polymers

In spite of all the advantages mentioned above, ETV-ICPMS, the introduction of which 25 years ago was received with great enthusiasm by the analytical community, has failed to become a standard introduction system for ICPMS. Nowadays, its use is mainly restricted to research centers and academia, not only in the field of polymer analysis, but also in every other field. The reason is perhaps related to the more recent introduction of microflow nebulizers that also show some of the advantages displayed by ETV (low sample consumption, higher analyte introduction efficiency). Moreover, the lack of the general success of ETV can also in part... 

OVERVIEW GENERAL CAPABILITIES OF ETV-ICPMS FOR TRACE ANALYSIS OF POLYMERS... 

At this point, however, and as derived from a closer look at the publications included in Table 44.2, it is necessary to stress that selection of ETV-ICPMS for the direct analysis of solid polymers is normally not the first choice, and this approach is only deployed in those cases where the additional advantages offered by this technique are actually needed and some additional problems hamper the use of other direct solid sampling techniques such as XRF, LA-ICPMS, or LIBS (i.e., very low LODs are required, lack of a suitable solid calibration standard, or presence of matrix-related interferences). If these cir-... 

The previous sections have illustrated that ETV-ICPMS presents a set of very interesting capabilities for polymer analysis that can be summarized as follows ... 

In the case of polymer analysis, however, not all of these capabilities have been used, at least, not to the same degree. In fact, the main reason for the scientists working in this field for opting for this technique has been related with its capability to directly deal with heavy matrices and, especially, solid samples. This can be easily seen in Table 44.2, wherein the publications reporting polymer analysis by means of ETV-ICPMS that were published in the last 10 years in the field are cited. 

As derived from data included in Table 44.2, most of the published polymer-related ETV-ICPMS applications deal with direct solid sampling analysis (or direct analysis of organic liquids), where the capability to reduce spectral and nonspectral interferences from such a heavy matrix is featured. A judicious selection of the ETV program in order to achieve this goal (including temperature programming and/or addition of modifiers if needed) was in all cases crucial for optimum results to be obtained and often permit the use of aqueous standards for calibration. 

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