Analysis of Plastics for Toxic Metals by Laser Ablation-ICP-MS in Collision Mode

Owing to growing international concern, governments around the world are setting in place regulatory guidelines to restrict the migration of certain toxic substances from manufactured materials into the environment. In this application note from PerkinElmer a unique laser ablation solid sampling method that displays real promise as a viable technique capable of accurate mutil-element quantitative analysis is described. The use of Helium as a collision gas in the Universal Cell of the NexION 300D ICP-MS is shown to improve the analytical capability of LA-ICP-MS for the determination of toxic elements in polyethene.