Combining Performance, Robustness and Productivity in ICP-MS Analysis of Challenging Matrices

In this series of blogs, I’d like to highlight the challenges that laboratories all over the world face when analyzing trace elements using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) or ICP mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). We will visit places all over the world, with stunning insights into what matters, what accelerates trace elemental analysis, and how Thermo Scientific ICP-OES and ICP-MS instruments support analysts to deliver better results faster. Buckle up, our first stop is already right around the corner!

Thermo Fisher Scientific: Combining Performance, Robustness and Productivity in ICP-MS Analysis of Challenging Matrices

Welcome from Rheinfelden, Germany, a town located directly on the Rhine River, right across from Switzerland and in between the Black forest and the Alps. It is a place where borders, industries, and ideas meet every day—which makes it a fitting home for highly specialized analytical chemistry. At the Evonik site in Rheinfelden, Germany, the Quality Control laboratory of the Business Line Smart Effects conducts the analytical investigation of a variety of chemical compounds, such as organic silanes, oxides, inorganic catalysts, and high-purity materials, for industries where even trace levels of metallic impurities have a dramatic effect on material properties. This conversation with Dr. Diego Rota Martir and Dr. Matthias Abele gives an overview of how their team is pushing ICP-MS to become more flexible, robust, and applicable to a wider range of challenging materials.

One lab, many sample types

Diego Rota Martir works as an analytical chemist at the QC Laboratory in Rheinfelden, where he leads the reference laboratory for Silanes. His team is responsible for coordinating quality control and analytical investigations across a broad range of products. The laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, including specialized laboratories for chromatography, NMR, traces analytics with ICP and other advanced analytical techniques. As Diego explains: “Our work in the trace analytic laboratory investigates pretty much the whole periodic table, with element concentrations ranging from parts per million (ppm) to parts per trillion (ppt) levels”.

Matthias Abele brings a broader global perspective as the Head of Quality Control & Analytics for the Business Line Smart Effects. He is responsible for analytical activities around silicon chemistry, including silanes and special oxides such as silicon oxides, aluminum- and titanium oxides. The laboratory in Rheinfelden plays a crucial role for the analytical investigation of product´s portfolio of the business line.

Diego and Matthias describe a laboratory where routine does not mean “simple”. The team may only process a small number of ICP-MS samples per day, but each sample involves demanding preparation steps, including digestion, evaporation, and a very careful handling to avoid any source of contamination. As Diego says, “Every measurement and every related preparation step comes with a great effort to ensure high level of precision.” In most cases, the team must wait at least a day before the sample is even ready for measurement.

To account for different purity requirements, the team needs to analyze both extremely pure materials characterized by element concentrations down to ppt levels, for example used in the electronics industry, and samples with much higher metal contents, ranging from ppm to even % levels.

This measurement range creates a practical problem. Instruments optimized for ultra-trace performance can be vulnerable when high-matrix or high-concentration samples are introduced to the system. But the opposite is also true, as instruments developed for measuring samples with high concentrations are often not sensitive enough to measure traces with high precision.

Their journey with ICP-MS meanwhile covers a range of Thermo Scientific ICP-MS systems, starting with the Thermo Scientific XSeries^II ICP-MS, various systems of the Thermo Scientific iCAP Qnova Series ICP-MS, but also high resolution ICP-MS systems, like the Thermo Scientific Element 2 HR-ICP-MS, which is used in the laboratory in Hanau, Germany. The latest addition to the laboratory in Rheinfelden was a Thermo Scientific iCAP MTX ICP-MS.

Matthias described earlier systems as analytically strong, but increasingly complex and less forgiving when the lab had to move between high-matrix and high-purity samples. “The XSeries^II was an incredibly robust system” Matthias says. “You could really do these incredible things on the instrument, measuring high ppm in the morning and parts-per-billion (ppb) in the evening.”

“Next we came to the Thermo Scientific iCAP Q ICP-MS, to the Thermo Scientific iCAP RQ ICP-MS, to the Thermo Scientific iCAP TQ ICP-MS, and the analytical performance, detection limits, and linearity became better and better, but complexity was increased as dedicated tunings and measurement set-ups has to be used.”

The addition of the iCAP MTX ICP-MS helped to address the gap between the two “ppt- to ppm-levels”: a strong performance when measuring at the trace concentrations with the flexibility of measuring across multiple sample types. Diego summarized the benefit clearly: “The flexibility to measure everything within one instrument is a big advantage.” He adds that, compared with previous instruments, the iCAP MTX ICP-MS allows them to measure “pretty much every sample we receive”.

Analysis of silicon-rich matrices and instrument robustness

For QC laboratories, flexibility is not just convenient but supports work efficiency. The team needs to handle requirements from different industries, sample matrices, and concentration ranges without splitting work across too many methods or instruments. In general, one of the advantages of triple quadrupole (TQ) ICP-MS systems is that they can reduce method complexity by using controlled reaction chemistry to resolve interferences with higher selectivity. This can offer a practical alternative to more specialized approaches, especially when the analytical question is well defined and the matrix is understood.

However, beyond spectral interferences, matrix effects can severely limit the productivity of a laboratory severely. Silicon based products are central to Evonik’s work, but also one of the major analytical challenges for the ICP-MS laboratory. In conjunction with the other sample types, ranging from inorganic materials, catalyst-type samples over to alloy-like samples, Matthias described silicon as “the major problematic element”.  With high silicon containing matrices, the response of earlier instruments could decline sample by sample. The team even saw silicon deposits on instrument lenses, creating maintenance challenges and downtime.

The iCAP MTX ICP-MS gave the team a more robust path for analysis. Diego explained that some sample matrices caused major issues when measured on the previous setup, mainly due to contamination of instrument parts. Matthias connected the improvement seen with the iCAP MTX ICP-MS directly to silicon matrix: “We really faced problems with high silicon matrixes when measured on the iCAP TQ ICP-MS, which we didn’t see from the iCAP MTX ICP-MS,” he explained. In earlier workflows, the effect could be immediate: “The intensity of signals dramatically dropped from sample to sample.” With the iCAP MTX ICP-MS, the team can now approach these matrices with confidence while maintaining the flexibility to measure samples with element concentrations ranging between ppt-level and ppm-level with high-matrix.

Reducing complexity while keeping performance “good enough”

For many years, the trace analytic Lab in Rheinfelden put a great effort into lowering the instrument detection-limits for measuring element concentrations in ultra-pure samples with high accuracy. These methods were based on the use of cold plasma and dedicated tunings which push instrument performance as far as possible. Where quadrupoles were not sufficient to reach the desired detection limit, high resolution ICP-MS systems were used.

With the iCAP MTX ICP-MS, the team made a deliberate choice: use the instrument as it was developed, with standard autotunes and standard methods, and evaluate whether the results were good enough for their applications. That shift was important, and the team could compare the performance of the iCAP MTX ICP-MS with standard set-up to the established and highly customized ICP-MS instruments. Interestingly, comparable performance between the iCAP MTX ICP-MS (without cold plasma) and previous ICP-MS instruments operated using cold plasma was achieved. Matthias clearly stated that, for some elements, cold plasma could deliver even lower detection limits, but for their applications, the iCAP MTX ICP-MS delivered the needed concentration range while reducing the burden of many setups, tunings, and calibration complications.

The team also evaluated applications that had historically been handled by HR-ICP-MS systems. Matthias explains: “We do not have Element 2 HR-ICP-MS systems in Rheinfelden, but this technology is used in a laboratory in Hanau, Germany, that runs measurements with high resolution systems.”

Matthias emphasized that high-resolution ICP-MS still plays an important role, especially for unknown samples or samples stemming from research projects. For example, high-resolution ICP-MS remains a highly versatile and sensitive technique when trace-level elemental screening in the ppb range is required. The ease of switching between low, medium, and high resolution allows analysts to adapt to varying analytical challenges while achieving excellent detection limits). Evonik has been able to move selected applications from Element 2 HR-ICP-MS over to the iCAP MTX ICP-MS. In these cases, the iCAP MTX ICP-MS did not need to match the high-resolution system in every aspect. It needed to be, as Matthias mentions, “good enough” for the application; and in selected cases, it was. Phosphorus was one example: it had traditionally been measured on high resolution ICP-MS systems but has now been successfully transferred to triple quadrupole ICP-MS using oxygen as reaction gas.

Diego summed up the value in practical terms: “What the industry wants is really one instrument that can do everything.” For him, that does not mean chasing every analytical extreme but covering the range that matters most in day-to-day industrial work. With the iCAP MTX ICP-MS, he added, the team employed a system that could overcome this challenge.

From Rheinfelden on the Rhine, this story shows how analytical laboratories are balancing sensitivity, simplicity, and resilience in everyday work.

Visit us on LinkedIn: #ICP-MS #MassSpectrometry #TraceElementalAnalysis