Development of a Spectral Reaction Table Library for 78 Elements with a Variety of Reaction Gases

This work presents a library of product ion scans acquired using the NexION® 5000 Multi-Quadrupole ICP-MS in the mass range of 2 to 285 amu, six reaction gases, and 78 elements including the radionuclides 99Tc, 226Ra, 237Np, 241Pu and 243Am. The library contains 1,300 scans. Each element was scanned at a concentration of 1 µg/L and the corresponding blank. Additional scans of potential isobaric-, polyatomic-, or doubly charged interferences in higher concentrations expand the library. The scans can be overlaid and subtracted in the Syngistix™ for ICP-MS software. The first result of this library are 6 colour-coded periodic tables for the individual gases, pre-informing the user about the suitability of the reaction gas for interference correction. In most cases, several alternatives are available. If the analyte reacts strongly with the reaction gas but the interferent does not, the Mass Shift mode, where detection occurs at a higher mass, is the method of choice. In the opposite case, where only the interferent but not the analyte reacts with the gas, the MS/MS mode will be chosen. Here, the original mass is used for detection, while the interferent is either removed from the ion beam by a charge transfer reaction or shifted to a higher mass by a mass shift reaction.