TY - JOUR A1 - Phukphatthanachai, Pranee A1 - Vogl, Jochen A1 - Traub, Heike A1 - Jakubowski, Norbert A1 - Panne, Ulrich T1 - A new approach of using polyethylene frits for the quantification of sulphur in copper metals by isotope dilution LA-ICP-MS and comparison with conventional IDMS techniques N2 - Polyethylene (PE) frits were used to quantify sulphur in copper and its alloys by isotope dilution combined with LA-ICP-MS as an alternative approach to conventional sample preparation: the copper samples were spiked, the spiked samples were dissolved, the resulting solutions were absorbed in the PE frits and finally the PE frits were analysed by LA-ICP-MS. A prerequisite for such a support material is a low sulphur blank and thus PE was selected for this purpose. The absorption efficiency of the PE frits was studied for varying sulphur amounts ranging from 2 mg S to 80 mg S showing that more than 99.5% of the loaded sulphur was absorbed by the frit. The so prepared PE frits were measured by LA-ICP-MS and yielded a good linearity (R2 ¼ 0.999) for the sulphur ion intensities corresponding to sulphur amounts up to 40 mg S; the associated sensitivity is approximately 3.4 x 10⁴ cps μg⁻¹ for ³²S. For the validation of the developed procedure the reference materials BAM-M376a, BAM-228 and BAM-227 were applied such that 2 μg S, 5 μg S and 11 μg S were absorbed in the PE frits, respectively. These samples were pre-quantified for the adsorbed sulphur amount by external calibration LA-ICP-MS yielding sulphur amounts of 0.9 μg, 5.1 μg and 8.5 μg (quantified for ³²S only), respectively. Relative Standard deviations of the isotope ratios were below 5% in average (n ¼ 3 lines) in all cases (except for the pure spike solution). These samples were then analysed by LA-ICP-IDMS and the measurement results were validated by comparing them with the results obtained by conventional ICP-IDMS. The obtained relative expanded measurement uncertainties ranged between 10% and 26%. Pearson's coefficient was used to express the correlation between both techniques; the obtained value was 0.999 demonstrating a strong correlation. Contrary to most published LA-ICP-IDMS procedures, the developed procedure enables SI-traceability for the measurement results. The metrological traceability to the SI for the sulphur mass fractions in copper was established by an unbroken chain of comparisons, each accompanied by an uncertainty budget. Thus, the measurement results are considered reliable, acceptable and comparable within the stated measurement uncertainty. The metrological traceability chain from the kg down to mass fraction in the samples obtained by LA-ICP-IDMS is presented as well. KW - Laser ablation KW - IDMS KW - Traceability KW - Uncertainty KW - Purity PY - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ja00116b SN - 0267-9477 SN - 1364-5544 VL - 33 IS - 9 SP - 1506 EP - 1517 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge AN - OPUS4-45899 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Löhr, Konrad A1 - Traub, Heike A1 - Wanka, Antje Jutta A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Jakubowski, Norbert T1 - Quantification of metals in single cells by LA-ICP-MS: Comparison of single spot analysis and imaging N2 - LA-ICP-MS is increasingly used for single cell analysis in two different detection modes using either the imaging mode with subcellular resolution or alternatively single spot analysis of cells with a larger laser spot size. This study compares the analytical figures of merit of both detection modes (signal to noise, precision, accuracy, throughput), as well as ease of operation and data evaluation. Adherent 3T3 fibroblast cells were stained with two metal dyes (mDOTA-Ho, Ir-DNA-intercalator) and several dozen cells were measured using both modes. We found a ten times higher throughput for single spot analysis, which has as well a straightforward data analysis, shortening the total analysis time further. The signal to noise ratio for single spot analysis was found to be slightly better compared to the signal to noise of pixels in imaging. The mean metal intensity per single cell differed by only 10% between both modes and obtained distributions were found to show no statistically significant differences. Using matrix matched calibration based on standards spotted onto nitrocellulose membrane, we achieved detection limits (10s) of 12 fg for Ir and 30 fg for Ho and quantified 57 +/-35 fg Ir and 1192 +/- 707 fg Ho per single cell. Compared to a conventional ICP-MS measurement of a digest of about 60000 cells, 54% of Ir content and 358% Ho content was found using quantitative LA-ICP-MS. The difference might be a consequence of the two metal dyes binding to different structures of the cell and therefore might behave differently in sample preparation for conventional and LA-ICP-MS. KW - Cells KW - Laser ablation KW - ICP-MS KW - Metals KW - Quantification PY - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ja00191j SN - 0267-9477 VL - 33 IS - 9 SP - 1579 EP - 1587 PB - RSC Royal Society of Chemistry CY - London AN - OPUS4-46441 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -