We herein describe a novel method of hydride generation (HG) coupled to a newly designed atmospheric pressure solution-cathode glow discharge (SCGD) spectrometric technique for the ultratrace determination of tin, germanium, and selenium. In this novel SCGD process, gas introduction was permitted using a hollow titanium tube as both the anode and sampling port. In these experiments, the analytes were converted into volatile hydrides upon passing through the hydride generator, and were introduced into the near-anode region of the SCGD system, where they were detected directly by atomic emission spectrometry (AES). A significant improvement in both selectivity and sensitivity was achieved, which was reflected in an improvement in the detection limits (DLs) by 3 orders of magnitude, in addition to successful valence analysis of Se without the requirement for chromatographic separation. In the absence of a strict sample pretreatment process and with a reduction in electrolyte consumption, the detection limits of Sn, Ge, and Se were determined to be 0.8, 0.5, and 0.2 μg·L. Moreover, our HG-SCGD-AES system demonstrated excellent repeatability (<3% peak height relative standard deviation) and more than 2 orders of linear dynamic range. The optimal operating conditions are outlined herein, and the analytical performance of the system is evaluated as described. Furthermore, our method was applied for the analysis of Sn, Ge, and Se in both environmental and biological samples, and the obtained results were in good agreement with reference values.

Imaging the size distribution of metal nanoparticles (NPs) in a tissue has important implications in terms of evaluating NP toxicity. Microscopy techniques used to image tissue NPs are limited by complicated sample preparation or poor resolution. In this study, we developed a laser ablation (LA) system coupled to single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS) for quantitative imaging of gold (G)NPs in tissue samples. In this system, GNPs were ablated but did not disintegrate and integrate under optimised operation conditions, which were verified by characterising LA particles by scanning electron microscopy. The feasibility of imaging size distributions in tissue was validated using reference GNPs 60 and 80 nm in size on matrix-matched kidney. A transport efficiency of 6.07% was obtained by LA-SP-ICP-MS under optimal conditions. We used this system to image 80-nm GNPs in mouse liver and the size distribution thus obtained was in accordance with that determined by nebuliser SP-ICP-MS. The images revealed that 80-nm GNPs mainly accumulate in the liver and did not obviously aggregate. Our results demonstrate that LA-SP-ICP-MS is an effective tool for evaluating the size distribution of metal NPs in tissue.