The importance of ion kinetic energy for interference removal in ICP-MS/MS.

The effect of ion kinetic energy on gas phase ion reactivity with ICP-MS/MS was investigated in order to explore tuning strategies for interference removal. The collision/reaction gases CO, NO and O were used to observe the ion product distribution for 48 elements using an Agilent tandem ICP-MS (ICP-MS/MS) as a function of reaction gas flow rate (pressure) and ion kinetic energy. The kinetic energy of the incident ion was varied by adjusting the octopole bias (V). The three gases all form oxides (MO) as the primary product with differing reaction enthalpies that result in distinct differences in the ion energies required for reaction with product ion distributions that vary with Voct. Consequently, by varying the ion kinetic energy (i.e., V), differences in interference reactivity can be used to achieve maximum separation. Three practical application examples were reported to demonstrate how the ion kinetic energy can be varied to achieve the ideal ion product distribution for interference resolution: CO for the removal of U in Pu analyses, CO for the removal of ArO vs. Fe, and O for the removal of Sm in Eu analyses, analogous to Pu/Am. The results demonstrate how the starting ion energy defined by V is an important factor to fully leverage the utility of any given reaction gas to remove interferences in the mass spectrum using ICP-MS/MS.