A beginner’s guide to ICP-MS / Вводное руководство по ICP-MS

Amazingly, 18 years after the commercialization of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), less than 4000 systems have been installed worldwide. If you compare this number with another rapid multielement technique, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), first commercialized in 1974, the difference is quite significant. In 1992, 18 years after ICP-OES was introduced, more than 9000 units had been sold, and if you compare it with the same time period that ICP-MS has been available, the difference is even more dramatic. From 1983 to the present day, more than 17,000 ICP-OES systems have been installed — more than four times the number of ICP-MS systems. If the comparison is made with all atomic spectroscopy instrumentation (ICP-MS, ICPOES, graphite furnace atomic absorption [GFAA] and flame atomic absorption [FAA]), the annual turnover for ICP-MS is less than 7% of the total atomic spectroscopy market — 400 units compared to approximately 6000 atomic spectroscopy systems. It’s even more surprising when you consider that ICP-MS offers so much more than the other techniques, including two of its most attractive features — the rapid ultielement capabilities of ICP-OES, combined with the superb detection limits of GFAA.  <....>