The Leiden Institute of Chemistry wishes to purchase an ICP-MS setup (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer) for its electrochemistry lab. The primary purpose of this setup is to detect and measure the concentration of ions and nanoparticles within the electrolyte of electrochemical cells very low concentrations (ppt-ppq). This requires unique capabilities and accuracy, that can only be provided by the highly sophisticated and state-of-the art design.
The Leiden Institute of Chemistry wishes to purchase an ICP-MS setup (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer) for its electrochemistry lab. The primary purpose of this setup is to detect and measure the concentration of ions and nanoparticles within the electrolyte of electrochemical cells very low concentrations (ppt-ppq). This requires unique capabilities and accuracy, that can only be provided by the highly sophisticated and state-of-the art design.
Our ICP-MS instrument is intended to be used in series with an electrochemical flow cell, where it can measure and detect the concentrations of the metal ions being introduced into the electrolyte in real-time. The main application would be to measure very low concentrations of metal ions and nanoparticles that come off of the electrode during corrosion in aqueous electrolytes containing high concentration of salts/acids. For the instrument to produce consistent measurements in terms of both concentration of the investigated species as well as the nano-particle size, it should not only have very low and accurate detection limits (ppt-ppq), but also be able to eliminate interference from undesired species and water vapors as much as possible. In addition, the instrument should be able to deal with the high salt concentrations in the electrolytes with minimal maintenance requirements
In addition to that, the ICPMS setup will assist in a wide range of research areas performed by different research groups in the institute including Bio-organic synthesis to catalysis & surface chemistry and supramolecular & biomaterials chemistry. Keeping that in mind, the instrument to be procured is desired to be not only versatile but also user friendly and requiring minimum maintenance and downtime.
Regarding maintenance, the RF coil that ionizes the sample should be corrosion-resistant design, which is crucial for the strong acids and bases used in our application. Second, the instrument should be actively able to separate the uncharged species from the plasma to reduce interferences, contamination and deposits on sensitive surfaces of the ion optics.
The instrument should also be able to remove interferences with the same mass/charge ratio in the collision reaction cell. The instrument should function very well with pure gases (reducing the interference from undesired ions) as well as inert gases (for the removal of unknown spectral polyatomic interferences) at low gas loads in the collision reaction cell.
The instrument should have detection limits in the ppt-ppq concentration range, which is necessary for our research purposes, despite the high salt load from the background electrolyte in our application.