Atomic spectrometry update: review of advances in atomic spectrometry and related techniques

This review of 180 references covers developments in ‘Atomic Spectrometry’ published in the twelve months from December 2023 to November 2024 inclusive. It covers atomic emission, absorption, fluorescence and mass spectrometry, but excludes material on speciation and coupled techniques which is included in a separate review. It should be read in conjunction with the previous review¹ and the other related reviews in the series.^2–6 A critical approach to the selection of material has been adopted, with only novel developments in instrumentation, techniques and methodology being included. Automated chip-based methods for elemental tagging and amplification are being developed which promise to further bring this technique into routine operation. High resolution bioimaging using LA-ICP-MS is becoming more sophisticated due to finer control of the laser pulse and new methods developed to deal with the large amounts of data generated. Single particle analysis utilising ICP-MS continues to offer new developments, particularly when used in conjunction with elemental tagging and bioimaging; and a new hyphenated method for single particle analysis was reported which married optofluidic force induction, Raman spectroscopy and ICP-MS. New research on LIBS techniques continues to address the issues of matrix effects and calibration, liquid analysis and chemometric data treatment, driving the technique forward.