High Throughput Analysis of Drinking Water by ICP-MS According to EPA Method 200.8

Metals Analysis and Remediation
Oral Presentation

Prepared by S. Sun
Analytik Jena US LLC, 100 Cummings Center, suite 234-N, Beverly, MA, 07001, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 781-799-4233

ABSTRACT

Drinking water is the world‘s most important resource and most consumed food. Quality control for drinking water is regulated by international and national regulations and norms. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the Method 200.8, which specifies criteria for the determination of trace elements in waters and wastes by ICP- MS.
Fast sampling systems were developed for ICP mass spectrometers, dramatically decreasing sample uptake time and thus total analysis time per sample. The limiting factor is no longer the supply and rinsing time of the sample, but the measuring time that depends on the number of elements to be analyzed. However, reducing the data acquisition time will directly affect the precision of the results as less averaging is possible due to the time constraint. Therefore, precision is the key parameter for the evaluation of high-throughput methods.
Using Analytik Jena’s patented iCRC technology for interference removal, we demonstrate the measurement of more than 80 drinking water samples per hour with 21 elements (+4 internal standards). Even with this high sample throughput, highly precise results were achieved to the
U.S. EPA 200.8 regulation. This performance is enabled by the industry-leading sensitivity of

the PlasmaQuant MS, which drastically reduces the required acquisition time per element. In combination with the lowest argon consumption on the market, this ultra-high throughput translates into lowest cost per sample.