Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The principle of TIMS is based on the formation of atom ions on a heated filament and the separation of these ions according to their mass/charge ratio in a mass spectrometer. In general, TIMS is applied for highprecision measurements of isotope ratios. In the basic design of a modern thermal ionisation source, a surface material is used in the shape of a flat ribbon filament. Usually, a solution (separated from the matrix and containing the element of interest in high concentration) is deposited in the centre of the filament as a liquid. Applying a current to the filament will evaporate and ionise the analyte deposited on the filament. In the case of a single-filament geometry, evaporation and ionisation of the analyte is accomplished with one filament, whereas in a double filament design, evaporation and ionisation is performed on two filaments placed parallel to each other. The analyte is evaporated on one filament, with ionisation occurring when the evaporated atoms strike the ionisation filament. A magnetic sector field is used as mass separator.

Mass Spectrometry‐based Techniques for Direct Quantification of High Ionization Energy Elements in Solid Materials—challenges and Perspectives

“…To conclude, due to several reasons, the ionization of highly electronegative elements is less efficient than other elements complicating their determination by mass spectrometric techniques. The presence of spectral interferences may also cause additional difficulties; however, this problem is to a certain extent present in all ionization sources and often requires special efforts to acquire the accurate results such as the use of higher resolution mass analyzers (Brand et al, 2015; Bürger et al, 2015; Jakubowski et al, 2015; Sangely et al, 2015; Venzago & Pisonero, 2015) or, for example, the use of ion reactions in collision reaction cell technology in ICP‐MS (Tanner, Baranov, & Bandura, 2002; Yamada, 2015). Notably, the interferences are mainly dependent on the mass range rather than the ionization energy of the elements, medium masses (ca.…”

“…That is why TIMS and IRMS are not considered in the current review in much detail. The readers are referred to more specialized publications in this respect, for example (Benson et al, 2006; Brand et al, 2015; Bürger et al, 2015; Gentile et al, 2015; Aggarwal, 2016; Matos & Jackson, 2019).…”

Application of non-traditional stable isotopes in analytical ecogeochemistry assessed by MC ICP-MS - A critical review

“…In contrast to TIMS, MC ICP-MS impresses because of the analytical ease of the method due to the reduced sample preparation required and high sample throughput as well as its capabilities to ionize a very broad set of elements [13]. Today, MC ICP-MS allows determining isotope ratios with measurement precisions comparable to those of TIMS (down to 0.001%) [10]. This might include preparatory work to fully separate the analyte isotopes from the matrix in order to overcome systematic errors derived from matrix-induced interferences as well as changes in instrumental isotopic fractionation (aka mass bias), which is significantly larger for MC ICP-MS [14][15][16] than for TIMS [12,17,18].…”

“…Until today, more than 60 elements have been analysed by TIMS and the technique has found its way into many more fields of research covering a wide spectrum from the original areas of applications to fields related to life sciences and environmental sciences as well [10].…”

The triple-isotope calibration approach: a universal and standard-free calibration approach for obtaining absolute isotope ratios of multi-isotopic elements

“…A completely different approach in TIMS is the total evaporation technique, which has been developed for the measurement of U and Pu first. In TIMS the IIF progresses over the duration of the measurement [ 6 ]. When integrating the ion beam of the isotopes of interest over the whole duration of a measurement, i.e.…”