Field flow fractionation online with ICP-MS as novel approach for the quantification of fine particulate carbon in stream water samples and soil extracts

Abstract

Reliable and efficient analytical techniques are required for quantitative size-resolved carbon determination of nanoparticles and colloids in complex sample matrices due to the key role of carbon in biological and environmental processes. Field flow fractionation (FFF) online with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is a powerful technique for identification and quantification of particle bound metals, but has not been applied for quantitative determination of particulate carbon, yet, due to several challenges. Therefore, our study explores the potential of online particulate carbon detection by ICP-MS to overcome limitations of previously used UV detection or offline total organic carbon measurements. A novel organic carbon detector (OCD) was used as independent sensitive carbon detector to validate the

Quantifying components of the phosphorus cycle in temperate forests

“…The assessment of specific biogeochemical and biological processes involved in the P cycle remains challenging due to the high susceptibility to decay displayed by several ecologically important molecular forms of P and related biogeochemical compounds . This may change with the great headway being made with speciation of P forms in soil on the molecular level and the detailed assessment of microbial P fractions . Most of the sources reviewed in this publication are concerned with specific parts of the P cycle and therefore only contain part of the data necessary to construct a complete site‐specific P balance.…”

Extending the capabilities of field flow fractionation online with ICP-MS for the determination of particulate carbon in latex and charcoal

“…In all cases calibration was performed using the post-channel (PC) approach. 15 Briefly, calibration standards were introduced via the internal standard line to establish a calibration which allowed conversion of the intensity based fractograms into mass flow fractograms. The absolute amount of eluting carbon was determined by peak integration and the concentration was calculated as ratio with the injection volume.…”

“…Carbon determination in permeates from ultrafiltration and in the corresponding non-filtered soil extracts and extracts from coal spiked soil was performed as previously reported using an Agilent 7500 ICP-MS with collision cell in He-Mode (Agilent Technologies, Japan). 15 One set of dilutions was acidified with 1% HCl and purged with Argon to remove inorganic carbon. Replicate dilutions were prepared with acidification but omitting the Ar purging.…”

“…Recently, we investigated the potential of FFF online with ICP-MS for the detection and quantification of particulate carbon in aqueous samples focusing on humic acids and proteins. 15 The few applications and the challenges of carbon detection with ICP-MS are summarised in this previous work. Validation was performed by parallel FFF runs online with an organic carbon detector (OCD) which is based on a thin film UV-reactor to oxidise organic carbon and detect as CO2 by infrared.…”

“…This could be demonstrated by matching results from FFF-ICP-MS and FFF-OCD for citric acid and humic acid standard solutions and environmental water samples as well as for bovine serum albumin. 15 However, latex particles and soot or charcoal particles constitute much larger and more robust carbon based structures. 16,17 Therefore, the aim of the current study is to evaluate the performance of ICP-MS detection online with FFF for the quantification of carbon in latex particles up to a size of 740 nm and charcoal spiked soil particles up to a size of 450 nm.…”