EVALUATION OF A LOW SAMPLE CONSUMPTION, HIGH-EFFICIENCY NEBULIZER FORELEMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES USING INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY

The applications of a pneumatically driven high-efficiency nebulizer ( HEN), operated at a solution uptake rate of 85 mu l min(-1), are repor ted for the analysis of digested biological standard reference materia ls using argon ICP-MS. Laser Fraunhofer diffraction also is used to ac quire droplet-size distributions for the tertiary aerosol from the HEN . Three Standard Reference Materials (SRM 1566 Oyster Tissue, 1577a Bo vine Liver and 1571 Orchard Leaves, National Institute of Standards an d Technology) are microwave/nitric acid digested and analysed by exter nal calibration with four internal standards. Results for the measurem ent of 10 elements in the SRMs are presented. In general, good agreeme nt is obtained between the measured and certified values. The droplet- size distributions of the tertiary aerosol of biological materials tes ted are nearly identical to that of the digestion blank solution consi sting of 10% HNO3.