News from LabRulezICPMS Library - Week 14, 2025

Our Library never stops expanding. What are the most recent contributions to LabRulezICPMS Library in the week of 31th March 2025? Check out new documents from the field of spectroscopy/spectrometry and related techniques!

👉 SEARCH THE LARGEST REPOSITORY OF DOCUMENTS ABOUT SPECTROSCOPY/SPECTROMETRY RELATED TECHNIQUES

👉 Need info about different analytical techniques? Peek into LabRulezLCMS or LabRulezGCMS libraries.

This week we bring you application notes by Agilent Technologies and Shimadzu and other document by Thermo Fisher Scientific!

1. Agilent Technologies: Enhanced RoHS Compliance Testing with Agilent 5800 ICP-OES

Accurate measurement of multiple elements including Cd, Cr, Pb, and Hg in plastic materials

• Application note
• Full PDF for download

The volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest-growing waste streams worldwide. Over 62 million tonnes was generated globally in 2024.1 However, only a small fraction of this waste is properly recycled, contributing to environmental pollution and the loss of valuable materials. To address this issue and to improve the safety of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), the EU first introduced the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive in 2003.2 By restricting the use of specific hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and certain flame retardants, RoHS helps ensure that products are safer for both consumers and the environment.3 As the design, type, and production of EEE evolve, ensuring compliance with RoHS regulations becomes increasingly challenging for manufacturers, importers, and distributors. Plastics, such as polyethylene (PE), polycarbonate, polystyrene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinylchlorate (PVC), and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), are often used in EEE because of their unique properties and cost-effectiveness.4 Manufacturers must rigorously test these materials using advanced analytical techniques to detect and quantify restricted substances, ensuring compliance with the stringent limits set by the directive. Among these techniques, Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) is one of the most effective tools for analyzing elements in plastics in accordance with RoHS regulations.5 

This application note describes a RoHS-compliant testing method for the multi-elemental analysis of plastics using an Agilent 5800 Vertical Dual View (VDV) ICP-OES. The methodology includes detailed procedures for sample preparation of a PE Certified Reference Material (CRM) and two real-life plastic materials used in EEE, instrument parameters, and performance evaluation. Quantitative results for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), tin (Sn), antimony (Sb), sulfur (S), and zinc (Zn) are presented. The data set demonstrates the suitability of the method for supporting manufacturers in achieving RoHS compliance with a high level of efficiency and accuracy.

Results and discussion

Sample analysis – spike recovery and precision 

Spike recovery tests in a sample matrix are an effective way to evaluate the reliability of the sample preparation and/or analytical methods, especially when suitable CRMs are unavailable. In this study, in addition to the analysis of the CRM, two real-life samples (A and B) were analyzed using the 5800 VDV ICP-OES. The measured concentrations of the analytes and spike recovery results are shown in Table 6. The spike recoveries for all analytes were within 94 to 108%, except for Sn in sample A, which had a spike recovery of 88%. This lower recovery could be due to the high measured concentration of Sn in sample A. 

However, the recovery of Sn in the CRM was 104%, assuring the method’s accuracy. The %RSD of the spike recovery measurements (n=3) was used to evaluate the method’s precision. As shown in Table 6, the spike recovery RSDs were ≤2.3% for all nine analytes in both samples A and B. This method validation data confirms the effectiveness of the microwave digestion sample preparation procedure for these materials. The results also demonstrate the excellent reproducibility and reliability of the 5800 VDV ICP-OES method for the analysis of complex plastic matrices.

Conclusion 

The Agilent 5800 VDV ICP-OES was used for the quantitative analysis of nine elements including RoHS-specified elements, Cd, Cr, Pb, and Hg, in plastics that are typically used in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). The samples included a plastic-based CRM (ERM-EC 681, polyethylene) and two real-life plastic matrices used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles. A one-stage microwave digestion sample preparation procedure ensured the complete digestion of these tough thermoplastic materials, facilitating accurate analysis by ICP-OES. 

The 5800 ICP-OES demonstrated outstanding sensitivity, accuracy, and stability, making it a reliable solution for EEE manufacturers required to comply with RoHS or equivalent testing standards. The Intelligent Rinse software feature of Agilent ICP Expert Pro streamlined operations by automatically adjusting rinse times based on user-defined thresholds, saving time and resources, and lowering the overall costs of analysis. This study highlights the 5800 ICP-OES instrument’s capability to deliver precise and consistent results, supporting the industry’s need for rigorous and reliable RoHS compliance testing.

2. Shimadzu: Simultaneous Multi-Element Analysis of Farmland Soil ExtractsUsing the ICPE-9820 

• Application note
• Full PDF for download

User Benefits:

• The ICPE-9820 can quickly analyze farmland soil for multiple elements simultaneously.
• The ICPE-9820 can analyze high matrix samples without dilution, such as farmland soil solution extracts.

Since soil contains constituents essential for crop growth that affect yield and quality, there is increasing demand for soil testing to help maintain optimum concentrations of soil constituents. Soil testing can determine the concentrations of these constituents and then create an optimized fertilization regimen to adjust them. Elemental analysis in soil testing is typically performed with an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). However, as soil testing becomes more common, there is a growing demand for faster soil analysis. 

The ICPE-9820, an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrophotometer (ICP-AES) offers a wide dynamic range and can analyze multiple elements simultaneously. Soil testing analyzes soil for a large number of elements, and the ICPE-9820 can perform extremely efficient analyses that measure major and trace constituentssimultaneously. 

In this Application News, the ICPE-9820 analyzed farmland soil solution extracts for exchangeable constituents, available boron, trace elements and cadmium. And a spike recovery test and a dilution test were then performed to validate this analytical method.

Conclusion 

In this Application News, the ICPE-9820 and extraction reagents normally used in soil testing were used to analyze three farmland soil solution extracts for exchangeable constituents, available boron, trace elements and cadmium. The results from validation testing show the analytical method was accurate. Using an axial view and radial view of plasma for different purposes allowed major constituents and trace constituents to be measured simultaneously without diluting samples for individual target analytes.

3. Thermo Fisher Scientific: Driving productivity through reliable analysis with reduced complexity

• Other document (case study)
• Full PDF for download

Element Material Testing Group is one of the world’s leading providers of testing, inspection, and certification. Element offers one of the most comprehensive ranges of materials testing services available in the Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) sector that covers materials selection, application, and performance testing as well as failure analysis testing services. With over 9,000 employees and 270 laboratories, Element is providing their services worldwide to 55,000 customers working in diverse sectors including aerospace, energy, environmental, industrials, and life sciences. 

The Element Edmonton laboratory is ISO 17025 accredited, specializing in inorganic analysis. With three ICP-MS and five ICP-OES systems, it analyzes for inorganic metals in soils and waters. Typical clients come from different industries such as oil and gas, construction, agriculture, municipal drinking water, and many more. 

Alexsandra Robert is a senior scientist who has been working with the company for 20 years, with over 15 years of experience with ICP analysis. ICP-MS analyses performed at the Edmonton facility are primarily testing for heavy metal contaminant levels in soil and water. “As the primary production lab for Element in Alberta, we currently analyze over 40,000 soils and 15,000 waters annually for metals,” stated Alexsandra. 

Analysis of soils and waters for elemental contaminants or minerals is typically performed using either Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) or Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) to satisfy the different analytical and regulatory requirements of customers. “The choice between ICP-OES and ICP-MS is largely driven by factors such as required detection limits, number of analytes, regulatory guidelines, and type of information requested by our clients,” Alexsandra further illustrated.

Busy analytical testing laboratories experience tremendous workloads and need to ensure that reliable results are delivered to their valued customers in time. Alexsandra noted, “Achieving reliable analytical results with minimum time and resources is very critical to the overall success of any analytical laboratory.” A Thermo Scientific™ iCAP™ MSX ICP-MS driven by Thermo Scientific™ Qtegra™ Intelligent Scientific Data Solution Software was added to the instrumental portfolio of the Element laboratory in Edmonton and has been in use for testing of environmental samples including ground waters, lake waters, surface waters, and different types of soil samples. Whereas the analysis of water samples is relatively straightforward, soil samples need to be acid digested either by microwave or hot plate digestion before introducing them into the ICP-MS for analysis. Samples are typically diluted off-line prior to analysis using ultrapure diluent to ensure that total dissolved solids in samples do not exceed the tolerance level of ICP-MS instruments. Alexsandra provided insight on the typical workflow of an environmental laboratory, “For laboratories analyzing hundreds of samples every day, off-line liquid dilution is a tedious, error-prone, and expensive analytical step as it requires time, manual intervention, and expensive reagents and apparatus.”