Articles
Research is under way as to the possibility of using high-precision isotopic analysis of metals in a biomedical context. The goal is to develop methods for medical diagnosis on the basis of isotopic analysis of mineral elements in biofluids, for diseases that can otherwise only be established at a later stage or via a more invasive method (e.g., a biopsy) and/or for prognosis purposes. Whilst this work is in a very early stage, it is known that various diseases have an influence on the uptake, metabolism and/or excretion of essential mineral elements and thus, can cause a difference in their isotopic composition in biofluids.
Jan Novotný, Karel Novotný, David Prochazka, Aleš Hrdlička and Jozef Kaiser tell us about “Two dimensional elemental mapping by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy”. LIBS seems to be finding increasing applications and to be receiving interest by the instrument manufacturers at present. The article provides an introduction to the technique and goes on to show how it can be used for elemental mapping in materials analysis.
Sotiris Stasinos and Ioannis Zabetakis have used ICP-MS to investigate the cross-contamination of food crops by heavy metals in ground or irrigation water. They show that this can occur easily in certain crops, which has serious health consequences for those consuming the food crop. As a consequence of their work, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been informed about the accumulation of Cr and Ni in food tubers and is taking action.
Bread is the major contributor to Na intake in the human diet. For this reason, it is expected that lowering the amount of salt in bread may lead to a substantial reduction in the sodium intake. However, lowering the amount of salt in bread has an impact on the flavour. Using LIBS, a fast and easy-to-use method could be set up to determine Na distribution in baked bread as an innovative tool to help the development of methods to reduce total sodium content in bread.
TiO2 is widely used as a sunscreen UV filter and as a colouring agent in all types of cosmetic products. TiO2 has recently captured the attention of the scientific community since its safety assessment has been placed again under consideration. Inductively-coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), square wave voltammetry (SWV) and sedimentation field-flow fractionation (SdFFF) are described in this article to characterise and quantify the TiO2 particles inside six commercial foundation creams.
The authors describe the use of a range of complementary methods to explore cellular, physiological and behavioural mechanisms underlying Al accumulation and toxicity, and its eventual fate, using the pond snail as a model organism.
The presence of trace elements in gasoline can lead to a number of detrimental effects both on the automobile engine using the fuel as well as the environment. Trace elements can dramatically decrease engine performance by negatively impacting the operation of the engine’s electronic sensors that control the combustion process. Additionally, environmental pollution occurs when trace elements are transported from the engine to the environment via emissions. The analysis of these elements is therefore crucial to ensure that the performance of the engine is not affected by the fuel and that environmental damage does not occur when trace elements are released from the engine via emissions. This article discusses how modern inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) technology surpasses the performance of traditionally used atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) techniques to ensure optimal fuel quality.
Imaging of organic and inorganic constituents of tablets represents a considerable challenge and no single spectroscopic approach can provide definitive characterisation of all components and/or satisfy key measurement criteria such as sensitivity, specificity, resolution and speed of analysis. Laser ablation in combination with ICP emission spectrometry represents a powerful new tool for imaging elemental distribution in pharmaceutical tablets.
The problem of detecting, recognising and identifying explosives at significant standoff distances has proved one of the most difficult—and most important—challenges during recent years, being today, one of the most demanding applications of spectroscopic techniques. The limited number of sophisticated available techniques potentially capable of standoff detection of minimal amounts of explosives is based on laser spectroscopy. Of the recently developed techniques, Raman spectroscopy and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) are considered significant for their potential for homeland defence applications.
This article highlights the versatility of the developed methodology for the measurement of arsenic species in a range of materials from Devon Great Consols (DGC), one of many former mining sites in the south- west of England.
After the progressive development of techniques that yielded results for optimal samples, Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has at last provided a means of analysing individual fluid inclusions in typical, rather than exceptional, samples. The first truly quantitative LA-ICP-MS analyses of single fluid inclusions were carried out in ETH Zurich in a group led by Christoph Heinrich and Detlef Gunther. They addressed the key issues of ablating into transparent host crystals to release fluid in a controlled manner, minimising interferences and finding suitable calibration strategies, while at the same time quantifying a signal that is typically released over a time of just a few seconds, giving a brief surge in the signal but no definite plateau. The laboratory we have built up in Leeds is based on theirs, but we have significantly developed the data handling.
Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was introduced commercially in 1983 as a very sensitive analytical technique to be deployed for (ultra)trace element analysis. Compared to the previously existing techniques of atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and ICP-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), the main advantages offered by ICP-MS over these techniques were its pronounced multi-element capabilities and substantially higher detection power, respectively.
L. Rello,a E. García-Ruiz,b M.A. Belarrab and M. Resanob*
aDepartment of Clinical Biochemistry, “Miguel Servet” Universitary Hospital, Paseo Isabel La Católica 1–3, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
bDepartment of Analytical Chemistry, University of Zaragoza, Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
Analysis of used lubrication oil for metals is commonplace in many industries. The metals analysed fall into three categories: wear metals, contaminants and additive elements. The concentration of these metals and elements can then be interpreted to schedule maintenance of engines and machinery such as construction machinery and aeroplanes. The cost of unscheduled maintenance can be high, not only in materials and parts, but also in lost profits due to down time. Once the oil has been sampled, Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) analysis is a very useful tool for this application. The high temperature source allows for full dissociation of organo-metallic compounds and also has the ability to handle the complex organic matrix. This allows for the oil to be directly aspirated into the ICP after a simple dilution, negating the need for any time consuming sample preparation technique and enabling a fast turnaround time.
The aim of this study is to compare two of the most applied digestion methods for heavy metals determination in calcareous soils, evaluating the most effective and useful digestion method to be applied to agricultural soils devoted to growing vegetable crops in the Valencian Mediterranean region, a representative area of the European Mediterranean region.
Teresa Jeffries,a Craig Storeyb and Javier Fernandez-Suarezc
aDepartment of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
bDepartment of Earth Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK
cUniversidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, s/n - 28040, Madrid, Spain
An introduction to Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), and examples of its use for remote applications.
Qi Jun Songa and Gillian M. Greenwayb*
aSchool of Chemical and Material Engineering, Southern Yangtze University, China
bHull Environment Research Institute, University of Hull, UK
Erwin Hoffmanna and Christian Lüdkeb
aGOS - Gesellschaft zur Förderung angewandter Optik, Optoelektronik, Quantenelektronik und Spektroskopie eV, Rudower Chaussee 29, 12489 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]
bISAS–Institute for Analytical Sciences, Department Berlin, Albert-Einstein-Str. 9, 12489 Berlin, Germany
J. Mortona and Simon M. Nelmsb
aBiological Monitoring, Health and Safety Laboratory, Broad Lane, Sheffield, S3 7HQ, UK
bThermo Electron Corporation, Ion Path, Road Three, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 3BX, UK
