Atomic spectrometry update. Atomic mass spectrometry

This Update follows on from last year's(1) but covers a longer period. The system we use to access abstracts has been improved with the result that ab stracts have become available more quickly, and the review more timely. Thi s review effectively covers a period of about 15 months up to the beginning of 2001. Although an attempt is made to consider all relevant refereed pap ers, conference abstracts, reports, book chapters and Patents for inclusion , this review does not aim at being comprehensive in its coverage. The sele ction of papers is based on criteria applied to focus sharply on the most s ignificant developments in instrumentation and methodology, or improved und erstanding of the fundamental phenomena involved in the MS process. With th e boundaries between atomic and inorganic molecular AIS, and indeed organic MS, becoming less well defined, the judgement of the authors of this El)da te becomes important in considering papers for inclusion. The main ruling c riterion for all papers is that the work should involve or be intended for the study of natural systems. For example, the study, of synthetic metal cl usters is generally, not included whereas the determination of organometall ic compounds in environmental samples is, Applications of atomic MS are not covered in this Update and readers are re ferred to the (Updates on Industrial Analysis: Metals, Chemicals and Advanc ed Materials,2 Environmental analysis(3) and Clinical and Biological Materi als, Food and BeverageS.(4) Becker anti Dietze(5) have produced yet another excellent review (210 references) covering in detail the inorganic MS tech niques that are used for trace, isotope and surface analysis. Barshick et a l.(6) discussed the fundamentals and applications of inorganic MS in their substantial review. Although not focused specifically, on MS techniques, the review (484 refere nces) of Rao and Biju(7) on the determination of REEs was interesting in th at it presented most of its data in tabular form. The trends noted over the last few years have continued. In particular, the growing interest in speciation studies has been matched by the number of p apers on the subject. The renaissance of GC-MS has continued and the niche of ESMS for species identification has been confirmed, in particular to com plement the elemental information provided by ICP-MS. In all of these studi es. sample preparation and introduction have generally, received most atten tion with the aim of further improving analysis, The very wide range of app lications of AMS iras made apparent bi, the papers presented tit a major in ternational conference.(8) The encroachment by, ICP-MS into areas of tradit ional TIMS studies has continued with some success but ultimate levels of p recision anti accuracy can often only be achieved by the latter technique e ven if procedures, are complex anti time-consuming. A number of interesting trends were noted for ICP-MIS in this review period. The use of LA, partic ularly for geological and environmental samples, continued to grow and has almost become a routine application. The use of collision or reaction cells for reduction/removal of polyatomic species has gained momentum and the us e of both single- and multiple-collector magnetic sector MS systems has als o increased significantly. There has been some interest in ICP-TOFMS system s, but it is not yet clear whether they offer any significant advantages ov er existing systems.