Using ICPMS/MS to determine manganese, iron, nickel, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead concentrations on less than 40ml of seawater

Science Highlights

30 April 2018

Jackson and co-workers (2018, see reference below) first did a classical offline preconcentration of small seawater aliquots using a SeaFast system. More innovative is the use of a state of the art inductively coupled plasma – tandem mass spectrometry (ICPMS/MS) to analyse the eluate. Such tool combines two mass-selecting quadrupoles separated by an octopole collision/reaction cell. The collision/reaction cell was pressurized with O2 gas for the analysis of manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) and H2 gas for the analysis of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn), which removed common interferences (e.g. ArO+ on 56Fe and MoO+ on Cd)… and the detection limits were less than 0.050 nmol/l, which is extremely low!

18 Jackson
Figure: A schematic diagram of the preconcentration and analysis of Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in seawater samples. Seawater samples are preconcentrated using the seaFAST preconcentration system, and analysed on an ICP-MS/MS pressurized with either O2 gas (Mn, Ni, Cu, Cd and Pb) or H2 gas (Fe, Zn). Click here to view the figure larger.

Reference:

Jackson, S. L., Spence, J., Janssen, D. J., Ross, A. R. S., & Cullen, J. T. (2018). Determination of Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in seawater using offline extraction and triple quadrupole ICP-MS/MS. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 33(2), 304–313. http://doi.org/10.1039/C7JA00237H

 

Latest highlights

The tumultuous life of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current over 5,3 million years, including focus on the glacial-interglacial forcing!

To reconstruct the strength of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the authors used sediment records from the pelagic central and remote South Pacific.

North-South radium-228 section in the Pacific Ocean

Moore and colleagues present results from radium-228 along the U.S. GEOTRACES Pacific Meridional Transect (GP15).

Strong lithogenic imprints in the Indian Ocean waters

Ueki and co-authors reported the first sectional distributions of zirconium, hafnium and niobium along a north-south track in the Indian Ocean.

The development of the modern Antarctic Circumpolar Current occurred much later than previously thought!

This study is challenging the belief that the onset of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current was solely triggered by the opening and deepening of Southern Ocean Gateways.

Rechercher