Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry

The application of inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) to the analysis of soil and biological materials was reviewed in 1982 for this book series (Soltanpour et aI., 1982). Over the last 14 yr many studies in soil science have incorporated data obtained on ICP-AES instrumentation, and many advances in the ICP-AES field have been made. In addition, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has become commercially available. The purpose of this chapter is to review basic ICP principles; highlight some of the applications of ICP-AES in the study of soils; and present an overview of some of the instrumental features, capabilities, and limitations of the ICP-MS for application to soil science work. Relatively new developments in ICP-AES include: suspension nebulization analysis of clays (Laird et aI., 1991); interfacing ICP spectrometers with flow injection analyzers for automatic dilution, calibration, separation, concentration, standard additions and many other operations (Greenfield, 1983; LaFemiere et aI., 1985); interfacing ICP-AES with liquid chromatographs for concentration and speciation of elements (Roychowdhury & Koropchack, 1990); high salt neulizers to prevent clogging of nebulizers (Legere & Burgener, 1985); successful use of concentration and elimination or reduction of spectral interference techniques such as chelation/solvent extraction (Huang & Wai, 1986;