Development of a 2D laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry mapping procedure for mercury in maize (Zea mays L.) root cross-sections Original Research Article

A LA-ICP-MS method based on a 213 nm Nd:YAG laser and a quadrupole ICP-MS has been developed for mapping of mercury in root cross-sections of maize (Zea mays L.) to investigate the mechanism of mercury uptake from soil and its potential translocation to the edible parts. Conventional rastering was found to be unusable due to sorption of mercury onto the internal parts of the LA device, giving rising to memory effects resulting in serious loss of resolution and inaccurate quantification. Spot analysis on a virtual grid on the surface of the root sections using washout times of 10 s in between spots greatly alleviated problems related to these memory effects. By ablating straight through the root sections on a poly(methyl methacrylate) support the calibration process was simplified as internal standardization and matrix-matching could be circumvented. Mercury-spiked freeze-drying embedding medium, sectioned similarly to the root sections, was used for the preparation of the standards. Standards and root sections were subjected to spot analysis using the following operational parameters: beam diameter, 15 μm; laser fluence, 2.5 J cm−2; repetition rate, 20 Hz; dwell time, 1 s; acquisition time, 0.1 s. The mercury peaks for standards and roots sections could be consistently integrated for quantification and construction of the 2D mercury maps for the root sections. This approach was successfully used to investigate the mercury distribution in root sections of maize grown in soil spiked to a level of 50 mg kg−1 DW HgCl2. It was found that at given Hg concentrations in the substrate Hg ions practically do not cross root plasma membranes of the endodermal barrier, but are entirely retained in the root apoplastic space. This suggests that maize plants grown in Hg-contaminated areas translocate Hg to the upper edible parts of the plant only to a small extent.