Single Particle Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometry (spICP-MS)

The spICP-MS technique is used to characterize the particle size and number distribution. Every particle that enters the plasma source will be completely atomized and ionized, so that a plume of ions will travel to the detector and cause a signal. The intensity of the signal is directly proportional to the number of ions arriving at the detection system in a given time. Therefore, the mass, and size, of the particle can be calculated for each particle derived signal. On the other hand, the particle number concentration can be assessed by counting the observed number of individual signals.

In addition to characterize the size and the concentration of nanoparticles, this instrument allows to differentiate the concentration of nanoparticles vs the ionic concentration, eg. Silver NPs vs Ag+ ion, or to quantify different populations of nanoparticles, eg. mixture of different size or composition nanoparticles samples.