Development of injection gas heating system for introducing large droplets to inductively coupled plasma.

We developed an injection gas heating system for introducing large droplets, because we want to effectively to measure elements in a single cell. This system was applied to ICP-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), to evaluate it performance. To evaluate the effect of the emission intensity, the emission intensity of Ca(II) increased to a maximum of tenfold at 147°C and the peak was shifted upstream of the plasma. To investigate in detail the effect of an injection gas heating system, we studied different conditions of the injection gas temperature and droplet volume. When the injection gas temperature was 89°C, smaller droplets were easily ionized. At 147°C, the emission intensity ratio and the absolute amount of the sample including the droplet exhibited close agreement. These results show the advantages of the injection gas heating system for large droplet introduction, and the sufficient reduction in the solvent load. The solvent load could be reduced by heating to 147°C using the system.