Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Zeitschriftenartikel (37)
- Vortrag (22)
- Posterpräsentation (2)
- Sonstiges (1)
Schlagworte
Organisationseinheit der BAM
- 1 Analytische Chemie; Referenzmaterialien (62) (entfernen)
Paper des Monats
- ja (3)
Eingeladener Vortrag
- nein (22)
In many scientific fields, isotopic analysis can offer valuable information, e.g., for tracing the origin of food products, environmental contaminants, forensic and archaeological samples (provenance determination), for age determination of minerals (geochronological dating) or for elucidating chemical processes. Up to date, typically bulk analysis is aimed at measuring the isotopic composition of the entire elemental content of the sample. However, the analyte element is usually present under the form of different species. Thus, separating species of interest from one another and from matrix components prior to isotope ratio measurements can provide species-specific isotopic information, which could be used for tracing the origin of environmental pollutants and elucidation of (environmental) speciation. Using on-line hyphenations of separation techniques with multicollector-ICP-MS (MC-ICP-MS) can save time and effort and enables the analysis of different species during a single measurement.
In this work, we developed an on-line hyphenation of CE with multicollector-ICP-MS (CE/MC-ICP-MS) for isotopic analysis of sulfur species using a multiple-injection approach for instrumental mass bias correction by standard-sample bracketing. With this method, the isotopic composition of sulfur in sulfate originating from river water could be analyzed without sample preparation. The results were compared to data from off-line analysis of the same samples to ensure accuracy. The precision of the results of the on-line measurements was promising regarding the differentiation of the river systems by the isotopic signature of river water sulfate. The great potential of this method is based on the versatility of the applied separation technique, not only in the environmental field but also for, e.g., biomolecules, as sulfur is the only covalently bound constituent of proteins that can be analyzed by MC-ICP-MS.
A recently introduced inductively coupled plasma-time-of-flight-mass spectrometer (ICP-ToF-MS) shows enhanced sensitivity compared to previous developments and superior isotope ratio precision compared to other ToF and commonly used single-collector ICP-MS instruments. Following this fact, an improvement for isotope dilution ICP-MS using the new instrumentation has been reported. This study aimed at investigating whether this improvement also meets the requirements of species-specific isotope dilution using GC/ICP-MS, where short transient signals are recorded. The results of the analysis of monomethylmercury (MMHg) of a sediment reference material show that isotope ratio precision of ICP-MS instruments equipped with quadrupole, sector-field, and time-of-flight mass analyzers is similar within a broad range of peak signal-to-noise ratio when analyzing one isotopic system. The procedural limit of quantification (LOQ) for MMHg, expressed as mass fraction of Hg being present as MMHg, w(Hg)MMHg, was similar as well for all investigated instruments and ranged between 0.003 and 0.016 μg/kg. Due to the simultaneous detection capability, the ICP-ToF-MS might, however, be more favorable when several isotopic systems are analyzed within one measurement. In a case study, the GC/ICP-ToF-MS coupling was applied for analysis of MMHg in sediments of Finow Canal, a historic German canal heavily polluted with mercury. Mass fractions between 0.180 and 41 μg/kg (w(Hg)MMHg) for MMHg, and 0.056 and 126 mg/kg (w(Hg)total) for total mercury were found in sediment samples taken from the canal upstream and downstream of a former chemical plant.
Molekülmassenspektrometrie entwickelt sich weg von klassischer Target- hin zu Nontarget-Analytik. Elementmassenspektrometrie liefert hohe Ortsauflösung beim Element-Imaging und analysiert einzelne Zellen. Aufgrund der Fortschritte bei den Geräten für Timeof-Flight-Massenspektrometrie mit induktiv gekoppeltem Plasma (ICPToF-MS) lässt sich das gesamte Periodensystem der Elemente in kurzen transienten Signalen quasi-simultan massenspektrometrisch erfassen.
Materials in contact with the environment release e.g., metal-ions, elemental species and/or (nano-)particles. Once these species and/or particles are released, they are ingested by organisms and cells and thus, might have a negative impact on the environment. Thus, identification as well as quantification of potentially harmful substances is of utmost importance and highly needed to assess ecotoxicological impact of (emerging) pollutants.
The oral presentation provides an overview on the power of elemental analytical techniques, in particular: ICP-MS as well as HR-CS-GFMAS in environmental research. Current research topics will be highlighted:
i) Elemental Speciation analysis of anti-fouling agents via CE/MC-ICP-MS;
ii) Per- and polyfluorinated compounds in surface waters via high resolution-continuum source-graphite furnace molecular absorption spectroscopy (HR-CS-GFMAS);
iii) Single cell and single organism analysis via sc-ICP-ToF-MS and ETV/ICP-MS for ecotoxicological assessment.
Solid state reactions are slow because the diffusion of atoms or ions through the reactant, intermediate and crystalline product phases is the rate-limiting step. This requires days or even weeks of high temperature treatment, and consumption of large amounts of energy. We employed spark-plasma sintering, an engineering technique that is used for high-speed consolidation of powders with a pulsed Electric current passing through the sample to carry out the fluorination of niobium oxide in minute intervals. The approach saves time and large amounts of waste energy. Moreover, it allows the preparation of fluorinated niobium oxides on a gram scale using poly (tetrafluoroethylene) (®Teflon) scrap and without toxic chemicals.
The synthesis can be upscaled easily to the kg range with appropriate sintering equipment. Finally, NbO2F and Nb3O7F prepared by spark plasma sintering show significant photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) oxygen evolution from water in terms of photocurrent density and incident photon-to-current Efficiency (% IPCE), whereas NbO2F and Nb3O7F prepared by conventional high temperature chemistry show little to no PEC response. Our study is a proof of concept for the quick, clean and energy saving production of valuable photocatalysts from plastic waste.
A general method to carry out the fluorination of metal oxides with poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE, Teflon) waste by spark plasma sintering (SPS) on a minute scale with Teflon is reported. The potential of this new approach is highlighted by the following results. i) The tantalum oxyfluorides Ta3O7F and TaO2F are obtained from plastic scrap without using toxic or caustic chemicals for fluorination. ii) Short reaction times (minutes rather than days) reduce the process time the energy costs by almost three orders of magnitude. iii) The oxyfluorides Ta3O7F and TaO2F are produced in gram amounts of nanoparticles. Their synthesis can be upscaled to the kg range with industrial sintering equipment. iv) SPS processing changes the catalytic properties: while conventionally prepared Ta3O7F and TaO2F show little catalytic activity, SPS-prepared Ta3O7F and TaO2F exhibit high activity for photocatalytic oxygen evolution, reaching photoconversion efficiencies up to 24.7% and applied bias to photoconversion values of 0.86%. This study shows that the materials properties are dictated by the processing which poses new challenges to understand and predict the underlying factors.