State-of-the-art and trends of development in analytical atomic spectrometry with inductively coupled plasmas as radiation and ion sources

The state-of-the art and the trends of development in the methods and prominent applications of ICPs as radiation sources for atomic emission spectrometry and as ion sources for mass spectrometry is discussed. Special emphasis is put on developments in sample introduction, on the atomic emission spectrometers now available with CCD detectors and on the different types of mass spectrometers, namely quadrupole systems, sector field instruments and time-of-flight instrumentation now available for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The potential of hyphenated techniques is also treated. The methods discussed are briefly situated with respect to the analytical potential of alternative methods for elemental determinations.