Transition metal concentrations in small biological samples

Accurate measurements of transition metals at very low concentrations is often challenging via ICP-MS.  Isobaric interferences from compounds generated in the argon plasma can lead to comparatively large detection limits for elements such as Fe, Cr and Ni.  Analyses on the Agilent 8900 operated with NH3 as a reaction gas causes a reduction in the transmission of the isobaric interferences to the detector resulting a better signal to noise ratio for the transition metal masses.    Sample preparation in our metal-free clean laboratory with high purity reagents contributes as little as 10 pg of background Fe to samples.  The coupling of the powerful analytical capability with our metal free clean lab results in instrumental detection limits for Fe as low as 0.03 ppb.

We can analyze cell pellets or biological material of approx 5 mg total mass and report Fe contents as low as 0.1 ng.