Interference removal in inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) is strongly dependent on the gas selected for use within the collision/reaction cell. There has been little investigation on the effects that reaction gas impurities may have on the resulting spectra. The reactivity of 60 elements was evaluated using nitric oxide (NO 99.5%) with and without a gas purifier to reduce H₂O impurities to <100 pptV. Experiments were performed using V, Ce, Tl and Th to investigate the effects of purified NO at various flowrates (0.22–1.49 mL min⁻¹). Purified NO was shown to significantly mitigate oxy-hydride interferences, improve total ion sensitivity (notable at high gas flows), and shift product distributions advantageously. The reduction in oxy-hydride species results in a product distribution favoring the major expected products, where signals were shown to increase by an order of magnitude. Reduced background and increased signal for the major expected products provides avenues for improving various analytical applications of ICP-MS/MS.

中文翻译：

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气体纯度对使用电感耦合等离子体串联质谱法观察到的 NO 反应性的影响


电感耦合等离子体串联质谱 （ICP-MS/MS） 中的干扰去除在很大程度上取决于选择在碰撞/反应池中使用的气体。关于反应气体杂质可能对所得谱图的影响的研究很少。使用一氧化氮 （NO 99.5%） 评估 60 种元素的反应性，使用和不使用气体净化器将 H₂O 杂质降低至 <100 pptV。使用 V、Ce、Tl 和 Th 进行实验，以研究纯化的 NO 在不同流速 （0.22–1.49 mL ^min-1） 下的影响。纯化的 NO 被证明可以显著减轻氧氢化物干扰，提高总离子灵敏度（在高气体流量下显着），并有利地改变产物分布。氧氢化物物质的减少导致产物分布有利于主要预期产物，其中信号显示增加一个数量级。主要预期产物的背景降低和信号增强为改进 ICP-MS/MS 的各种分析应用提供了途径。