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High-performance inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (HP-ICP-OES) was used to certify the Be mass fraction in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1877 Beryllium Oxide Powder. The certified value and expanded uncertainty expressed at a 95% confidence level is (0.3576 +/- 0.0024) g/g. To obtain best results, the Be mass fractions, Mn (internal standard) mass fractions, and matrix compositions of the calibration solutions were carefully matched to those of the sample solutions for each individual HP-ICP-OES analysis. This "exact matching" approach was used because experience at NIST has shown that it often affords improved accuracy and precision in HP-ICP-OES analysis. NIST has never published these observations. Due to the toxicity of BeO and the difficulty of containing the very fine powder material, sets of solutions for HP-ICP-OES analysis were prepared by laboratories collaborating with NIST who have the experience and equipment needed to work with the material safely. Each laboratory utilized a unique digestion protocol(s). After preparing the sets of solutions, the collaborating laboratories shipped them to NIST for HP-ICP-OES analysis. NIST provided the collaborating laboratories with solution preparation kits and spreadsheets to help establish traceability of the HP-ICP-OES results to the International System of Units (SI) and to allow exact matching to be accomplished. The agreement observed among the four individual Be mass fraction values determined from the sets of solutions prepared by the collaborating laboratories was 0.074% relative (1s of mean). The excellent agreement provides a measure of confidence in the robustness of each of the digestion procedures, as well as in the certified Be mass fraction value. The analytical benefits of using exact matching for this particular certification were investigated. Results show that exactly matching the matrix compositions of the standards to the samples for each HP-ICP-OES analysis was critical to obtaining the excellent agreement observed among the individual Be mass fraction values and also helped to minimize bias and uncertainty in the certified value. Unlike previous NIST studies, exactly matching the Be and Mn mass fractions of the standards to the samples for this particular certification appears to have had little effect on the data.

A procedure is introduced that can mitigate the deleterious effect of low-frequency noise [Formula: see text] often termed drift [Formula: see text] on the precision of an analytical experiment. This procedure offers several performance benefits over traditional designs based on the periodic measurement of standards to diagnose and correct for variation in instrument response. Using repeated measurements of every sample as a drift diagnostic, as opposed to requiring the periodic measurement of any given sample or standard, the analyst can better budget the measurement time to be devoted to each sample, distributing it to optimize the uncertainty of the analytical result. The drift is diagnosed from the repeated measurements, a model of the instrument response drift is constructed, and the data are corrected to a "drift-free" condition. This drift-free condition allows data to be accumulated over long periods of time with little or no loss in precision due to drift. More than 10-fold precision enhancements of analytical atomic emission results have been observed, with no statistically significant effects on the means. The procedure is described, performance data are presented, and matters regarding the procedure are discussed.

Exact matching is investigated as a means of improving high-performance inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (HP-ICP-OES), a technique developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to enable elemental determinations with relative expanded uncertainty of approximately 0.2% expressed at 95% confidence. "Exact matching" refers to the very careful matching of analyte mass fractions, internal standard mass fractions, and matrix compositions among the calibration and unknown sample solutions prepared for an analysis. Computer spreadsheet modeling results and laboratory data involving 16 pairs of analyte and internal standard wavelengths show that exact matching of analyte and internal standard mass fractions mitigates imprecision and bias that can be caused by even subtle nonlinearity in the ICP-OES instrument response. Laboratory experiments also demonstrate matrix effects caused by small variations in acid composition and by mass fractions of Na less than 4 mg kg(-1), emphasizing the need for exact matching of matrix compositions. HP-ICP-OES analyses performed at NIST with and without exact matching illustrate that exact matching enables relative expanded uncertainties to be halved to approximately 0.1%.

A technique has been developed which can determine where within a flame laser-enhanced ionization (LEI) actually takes place, thus forming an image of the LEI active volume. The method is based upon spatial control of the flame volume sampled by the ionization detection electrodes by variation of the applied voltage. As and example, this procedure has been used to observe anomalous contributions to LEI caused by scattering or fluorescence from the laser beam to other regions in the flame

An automated sample introduction system, utilizing a demountable direct injection high-efficiency nebulizer (d-DIHEN), is successfully incorporated for the first time with an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) for the measurement of the phosphorus content in acid-digested nucleotides and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). With this experimental setup, the solution uptake rate and volume are reduced from 170 to 30 microL min(-1) and from 10 to 2.4 mL, respectively, thereby reducing the required DNA sample mass for solutions containing 3 microg g(-1) P from 300 to 72 microg of DNA, in comparison to previous analyses in our laboratory using a glass concentric nebulizer with cyclonic spray chamber arrangement. The use of direct injection also improves P (I) 213.617 nm sensitivity by a factor of 4 on average. A high-performance (HP) methodology in combination with the previous sample introduction system and ICP-OES provides simultaneous, time-correlated internal standardization and drift correction resulting in relative expanded uncertainties (% U) for the P mass fractions in the range of 0.1-0.4 (95% confidence level) for most of the thymidine 5'-monophosphate (TMP), calf thymus DNA (CTDNA), and plasmid DNA (PLDNA) analyses. The d-DIHEN with HP-ICP-OES methodology allows for the quantification of DNA mass at P mass fractions as low as 0.5 microg g(-1), further reducing the required DNA mass to 12 microg, with small uncertainty (or = 0.4%). This successful approach will aid in the development and certification of nucleic acid certified reference materials (CRMs), particularly for these samples that are typically limited in volume.

The certification of Standard Reference Material (SRM is a registered trademark of NIST) 3103a As Spectrometric Solution is based on the gravimetric preparation value that is verified by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) measurements. A disagreement between the gravimetric and the spectrometric values for a batch of As calibration solutions led to the discovery that the solutions contained a mixture of trivalent and pentavalent As species and that the pentavalent species was approximately 8% more sensitive than the trivalent species with ICP-OES determination. The kinetics of the reaction between As metal and nitric acid were studied, and the results were applied to develop a procedure that would consistently produce single-species pentavalent As standards, which eliminates As speciation as a source of measurement bias in the SRM certification process.

Homogeneous incorporation of analytes of known isotopic abundance into sol-gel-derived standards that mimic important mineral systems has the potential to contribute significantly to providing solid standard benchmarks for a range of applications. This preliminary study reports on the synthesis of solid glass standards produced via the sol-gel method and their doping with Standard Reference Material (SRM) 981 Common Lead Isotopic Standard and SRM 982 Equal-Atom Lead Isotopic Standard. Custom isotopic materials were also prepared using mixtures of the two isotopic SRMs. Particles from these solid samples were then introduced into an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer via laser ablation to determine whether materials of suitable homogeneity could be developed as isotopic reference materials. Preliminary results for Pb isotope ratios show that these solid isotopic reference standards are capable of correcting for instrumental mass bias and laser ablation-induced bias due to fractionation simultaneously. Correction factors generated from the quotient of the certified and measured Pb isotopic ratios in sol-gel disks spiked with SRMs 981 and 982 were successfully applied to produce accurate isotope ratios using comparative control/unknown checks. These correction factors were also used to assign Pb isotopic ratios in NIST SRM 612 Trace Elements in Glass that were in excellent agreement with published measurements, suggesting that tunable matrix sol-gel disks can serve as adequate control matrixes for evaluation of isotope ratios in glass samples.

A solution-based inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometric (ICP-OES) method is described for elemental analysis with relative expanded uncertainties on the order of 0.1% relative. The single-element determinations of 64 different elements are presented, with aggregate performance results for the method and parameters for the determination of each element. The performance observed is superior to that previously reported for ICP-OES, resulting from a suite of technical strategies that exploit the strengths of contemporary spectrometers, address measurement and sample handling noise sources, and permit rugged operation with small uncertainty. Taken together, these strategies constitute high-performance ICP-OES.

A point charge model based upon charge induction theory has been developed to describe the proposed detection mechanisms of laser-enhanced ionization (LEI). The model predictions are in good agreement with experimentally observed LEI electron and ion signal pulses. The predicted effects of alkali metal matrix concentration and laser beam position are also confirmed by experimental results. The development of this model provides a basis for establishing experimental methodology that is necessary for the development of LEI as a technique for trace metal analysis. 23 references, 8 figures, 2 tables.

Laser-enhanced ionization, used as an element-specific detector for liquid chromatography (LC), is applied to trialkyltin determinations in sediment. The LC separates the organotins and resolves spectral interferences from the analytes. A rapid method for extracting tributyltin (TBT) from sediment into 1-butanol is described. The detection limit is 3 ng/mL tin as TBT or 0.06 ng of tin.