40 Years Old and Still Solving Problems: Evolution of the ICP-MS Application Landscape

The year 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the commercialization of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Today, there are close to 2000 ICP-MS systems installed worldwide every year, representing around $400M in annual sales. These instruments are used for a wide variety of applications, from routine, high-throughput multielement analysis to more complex tasks, such as trace element speciation studies with high-performance liquid chromatography and monitoring of nanoparticles. My column this month will look at the evolving ICP-MS marketplace, highlighting current application trends (compared to other analytical spectroscopy techniques), and where the technique might be heading 5–10 years from now.