Argon versus helium as carrier gas for LA-ICP-MS impurity mapping on ice cores

IF 4.1 Q1 CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL
Pascal Bohleber , Kristina Mervič , Remi Dallmayr , Ciprian Stremtan , Martin Šala
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Abstract

Impurity records in polar ice cores have provided invaluable insights into atmospheric aerosol concentrations of the past environment. The investigation of the oldest, deepest and highly thinned ice core layers is one of the most pressing tasks in today’s state-of-the-art ice core research. This calls for impurity analysis at high spatial resolution, which has to take into account post-depositional processes through the interaction of impurities with the ice matrix. To this end, mapping the impurity distribution in ice with laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has great potential. Here we explore to what extent the use of Ar as a carrier gas has merits in ice core impurity mapping with LA-ICP-MS. This is motivated by the fact that a) the use of Ar is more economical over He, especially when used in conjunction with large volume sample cells, and b) an increase in sensitivity has previously been reported when adding ”wet” Ar to He as a carrier gas. We show that, albeit not fully matching the single-pulse-performance of He, it is possible to achieve mapping at up to 500 Hz with Ar in a system that is originally designed for He. In contrast to what we find on NIST glass standards and a sample of decorative murrina glass, maps obtained on ice core samples show higher intensities in Ar than in He. In an extreme case example, we show how Ar may permit to obtain signals in a deep interglacial ice sample from Antarctica with very low impurity concentrations, which was not possible when using He with the same LA-ICP-MS system.

Abstract Image

氩与氦作为载气在冰芯上进行LA-ICP-MS杂质测绘
极地冰芯中的杂质记录为过去环境的大气气溶胶浓度提供了宝贵的见解。在当今最先进的冰芯研究中,最古老、最深、最薄的冰芯层的研究是最紧迫的任务之一。这就要求在高空间分辨率下进行杂质分析,必须考虑到杂质与冰基质相互作用的沉积后过程。为此,利用激光烧蚀电感耦合等离子体质谱(LA-ICP-MS)绘制冰中杂质分布具有很大的潜力。在这里,我们探讨了在多大程度上使用Ar作为载气在冰芯杂质映射与LA-ICP-MS的优点。这是因为a)使用Ar比He更经济,特别是当与大体积样品电池一起使用时,b)以前报道过在He中添加“湿”Ar作为载气时灵敏度增加。我们表明,尽管不能完全匹配He的单脉冲性能,但可以在最初为He设计的系统中实现高达500 Hz的Ar映射。与我们在NIST玻璃标准和装饰玻璃样品上发现的相反,在冰芯样品上获得的地图显示Ar的强度高于He。在一个极端的例子中,我们展示了Ar如何允许在来自南极洲的杂质浓度非常低的深层间冰期冰样品中获得信号,这在使用相同的LA-ICP-MS系统时是不可能的。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Talanta Open
Talanta Open Chemistry-Analytical Chemistry
CiteScore
5.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
86
审稿时长
49 days
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