Electrothermal vaporization coupled with inductively coupled plasma array–detector mass spectrometry for the multielement analysis of Al2O3 ceramic powders

An electrothermal vaporization (ETV) system useful for the analysis of solutions and slurries has been coupled with a sector-field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP–MS) equipped with an array detector. The ability of this instrument to record the transient signals produced for a number of analytes in ETV–ICP–MS is demonstrated. Detection limits for Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Ga are in the range of 4–60 pg μL− 1 for aqueous solutions and in the low μg g− 1 range for the analysis of 10 mg mL− 1 slurries of Al2O3 powders. The dynamic ranges measured for Fe, Cu and Ga spanned 3–5 orders of magnitude when the detector was operated in the low-gain mode and appear to be limited by the ETV system. Trace amounts of Fe, Cu and Ga could be directly determined in Al2O3 powders at the 2–270 μg g− 1 level without the use of thermochemical reagents. The results well agree with literature values for Fe and Cu, whereas deviations of 50% at the 90 μg g− 1 level for Ga were found.