Question #17fa1

1 Answer
May 20, 2015

Yes, ICP-MS can be used to determine composition of a mixture.

ICP-MS stands for Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry and what this does is ionize the sample and the MS part of it detects the composition of the ionized particles.

However like with any instrument there are some issues like Argon interference in the machine due to the plasma and so on. So that needs to be taken into account.

More in depth information at this website: http://crustal.usgs.gov/laboratories/icpms/intro.html

Hope I helped :)