Speaker
Description
The relative abundances of an element’s stable isotopes can change due to biological, physical, and chemical mass dependent processes in living systems and the environment. In a biological system, shifts in an element’s isotopic composition may indicate changes in its regulation due to disease, or exposure to toxic levels of the element or its parent isotopes. These changes in isotopic composition are subtle, and detecting differences in relative abundance requires precision measurement capabilities. The multiple collector mass spectrometer coupled to an inductively coupled argon plasma ion source (MC-ICP-MS) is the established method for high precision isotope abundance measurements. However, for some elements such as calcium and iron, isobaric interferences with argon-based polyatomic ions severely limit sensitivity and precision. A newly introduced instrument from the University of Calgary is enabling precision measurement of such isotopes with a multiple collector plasma mass spectrometer by replacing the argon plasma ion source with a microwave inductively coupled atmospheric pressure plasma (MICAP) source. The MICAP ion source uses a nitrogen-sustained plasma, eliminating argon-based interferences. In this talk, I will describe this new instrument and demonstrate how the MICAP minimizes the limitations faced by conventional argon MC-ICP-MS. Specifically, I will showcase the effectiveness of this novel instrument using examples of zinc and calcium isotopes and explore the new applications possible in the study of cycling of trace metals in biological systems.
| Keyword-1 | Mass spectrometry |
|---|---|
| Keyword-2 | Plasma ion source |
| Keyword-3 | Life science applications |