Liquid-Phase Chromatograph coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (HPLC-ICP-MS)

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The instrument applied for within the present proposal is a liquid-phase chromatograph coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (LC-ICP-MS, more specifically a bioinert HPLC-ICP-MS/MS) to replace an existing, outdated similar configuration within the Environmental Geochemistry Group at Bayreuth University. The instrument is central for the group´s current and future fundamental research and national and international collaborations. The group´s research aims at identifying and quantifying chemical and (micro)biological processes that govern fate and transport of either essential or potentially toxic trace elements in the environment. The major goal is to go beyond total element quantification, instead identify individual, often previously unknown or unrecognized, species. The group has an international reputation especially for their work on redox-sensitive trace elements interlinking with the biogeochemical cycle of sulfur. Current and planned individual and collaborative research projects (funded by e.g. DFG, BMBF, EU) all base on the group´s expertise with and accessibility of that instrument in their own laboratories, among others also for further method development.The major requirements for the instrumentation are a high performance liquid-phase chromatography front end system, chemically inert against the typically used highly corrosive eluents (work with thiolated species requires elution conditions up to pH 13), capable of column cleaning with different eluents parallel to sample analysis with gradient eluents and online sample pre-treatment with separately applied eluents (realized with two parallel quaternary pumps). The detector (ICP-MS) must enable quantification of metal(loid)s over a large concentration range, with high sensitivity, robustness against environmental matrices, ability of efficient removal of interference, including resolution of isobaric interferences (realized with a triple quadrupole setup), and fast consecutive multi-element detection. Sample introduction must work automatically with flexible uptake volumes, automatic internal standard spiking, aqueous dilution or carrier gas dilution. Requirements of hardware and software for coupling, including two-way communication between both instruments, must be implemented from one single manufacturer and the software must both allow for measurements with largely automatized routines as well as for method development on a fully individual mode with manual control of all parameters. Software for data interpretation must be freely accessible to the whole work group.