SPECIATION OF CHROMIUM, LEAD AND NICKEL COMPOUNDS BY LASER MICROPROBEMASS-SPECTROMETRY AND APPLICATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES

Laser microprobe mass spectrometry with time-of-flight analyser is eva luated as a tool to perform speciation of chromium, nickel and lead co mpounds in solids with a lateral resolution in the pm range. Commercia l instruments irradiate the sample at 266 nm while a tunable dye laser is fitted to some experimental set-ups. The analytical merits of both approaches are surveyed and their application to selected test cases in the field of environment and biological tissue analysis at the sub- cellular level is presented, A comparison between TOF LMMS and mu-Rama n for the speciation of given components in large industrial airborne particles is discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.