Capabilities of laser ablation – ICP-TOF-MS coupling for isotopic analysis of individual uranium micrometric particles

Abstract

Isotopic compositions of individual uranium micrometric particles are measured precisely by means of laser ablation – time of flight ICP-MS coupling.

Rapid Determination of Uranium Isotopic Abundance from Cotton Swipes: Direct Extraction via a Planar Surface Reader and Coupling to a Microplasma Ionization Source

“…17 attractive use of LA sampling is in the analysis of discrete particles, such as found on filters of various form; i.e., single particle analysis in biological 19,20 and nuclear safeguard samples. 12,21,22 While spatial mapping is one of the inherent advantages of LA-based methods, the ability to find species of interest in a surface can prove challenging. There is also an issue of the overall level to which such microanalyses are representative of a "bulk" sample.…”

‘Blind time’ – current limitations on laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) for ultra-transient signal isotope ratio analysis and application to individual sub-micron sized uranium particles

“…Over time, sample size for LA-ICP-MS has varied from pressed powder pellets 16 to 10-30μm particles 11,17,18 and smaller 19 . Recently the scale has shifted from the micron to submicron [20][21][22][23][24] , attention being focussed by recent inter-laboratory comparisons [25][26][27] . To date, several studies have analysed micron and sub-micron uranium particles by LA-ICP-MS. Pointurier et al 21 compared a 213 nm laser system coupled with a quadrupole-based ICP-MS, to TIMS and SIMS for 235 U/ 238 U isotope ratio analysis.…”

“…Adopting pseudo-simultaneous detection to overcome spectral skew with LA-ICP-TOF-MS for uranium particle analysis has been investigated, but was hampered by limitations in detector linearity and sample ion yield 23 .…”

FI-ICP-TOFMS for quantification of biologically essential trace elements in cerebrospinal fluid – high-throughput at low sample volume

“…ICP-time-of-flight MS provides pseudo-simultaneous analysis (ions are sampled simultaneously but read out sequentially) of a large part of the entire mass range. Its main application fields are single cell analysis, 16 single particle analysis [17][18][19] and high-resolution laser ablation-ICP-MS imaging using low dispersion cell setups, [20][21][22] where in all cases short transient signals are delivered. Of the commercially available ICP-TOF-MS instruments, icpTOF (TOFWERK AG, Thun, Switzerland) provides the analysis of a mass range of m/z = 2-256 with a mass resolving power (R = m/Δm) of 3000 and 6000 (FWHM definition).…”