Major Advances in Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (2005—2016)

In the last years（2005-2016）, the performance of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been greatly improved, and its sensitivity was up to 10⁶ cps/(1 μg/L, In), and the stability to 1%-2%. The precision of MC-ICP-MS has been remarkably improved, and the precision of isotope measurement is better than 0.01%. High speed data acquisition technology and database technology have been widely used in all kinds of ICP-MS, so that the data processing ability has been further strengthened. The ability to eliminate the interference from matrix and polyatomic ions has been further improved by triple tandem quadrupole and high resolution techniques. Various green energy saving and environmental protection measures for ICP-MS get attention. Analysis techniques for some high ionization energy elements like precious metals, metalloid and non-metals have been significantly addressed. Hyphenated techniques and speciation analysis of ICP-MS based on laser ablation (LA), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), ion chromatography (IC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), electrothermal vaporization (ETV) and chemical vapor generation (CVG) have been rapidly developed during this period. ICP-MS combined with single particle (SP) and single cell (SC) techniques led to the emergence of function defined ICP-MS and greatly expanded the applications of ICP-MS. Rapid development of ICP-MS technology has driven the ICP-MS applications from traditional inorganic elements analysis to organic biological and morphological analysis; from traditional solution sample introduction analysis to online solid sample introduction analysis; from traditional elements content analysis to 2D-3D imaging analysis and high precision isotope analysis. ICP-MS analysis technology in the field of energy, geology, materials, environmental protection, biomedicine, food, homeland security, and many other areas of application has been further expanded. The mature ICP-MS analysis methods have been standardized and widely applied to the routine analysis nationwide. This paper briefly summarized and reviewed the major advances of ICP-MS in the years of 2005-2016.