It has now been nearly 50 years since the modern version of the Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) was introduced.  Amazingly, over that long interval, the design of the ICP torch, its operating conditions, instrumentation to drive it, and its analytical figures of merit have changed little.  Whether employed for optical-emission spectrometry (OES) or mass spectrometry (MS), the ICP is clearly a workhorse and provides performance levels for elemental analysis that are in most ways spectacular.  Indeed, many users and vendors of ICP-OES and ICP-MS instruments view the modern ICP as entirely satisfactory; in their view and, regrettably, in the view of many granting agencies, the ICP is a solved problem, one in which further investment cannot be justified or is simply not needed.  In this presentation, this complacent view will be disputed; shortcomings of ICP-OES and ICP-MS, too often ignored or unrecognized, will be documented, and analysis errors will be cited.  The discussion will then turn to recent or potential developments that offer attractive alternatives to the ICP for elemental, molecular, or biomolecular analysis.

Is there no better analytical plasma source than the ICP?

255th National Meeting (2018)

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