Capillary gas chromatography-ICP mass spectrometry: a powerful hyphenated technique for the determination of organometallic compounds

Abstract

The development and improvement of a gas chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry system, GC-ICP-MS, is described. The GC and ICP-MS are coupled with a heated stainless steel transfer line. Xe, present in the GC carrier gas, is used to facilitate the nebuliser gas flow rate setting and the positioning of the torch. Alkyltin compounds are separated by GC using a 30 m capillary column within 9 min. The necessity of applying double internal standardisation (use of Bu₃PeSn and Xe gas as internal standards) is shown. The repeatabilities at 50 μg/l concentration for both retention time and peak are better than 0.25% and 5%, respectively. The detection limits for alkyltin compounds are better than those of existing methods and range between 15 and 35 fg Sn. Finally, GC-ICP-MS is applied to the determination of mono-, di- and tributyltin in some harbour waters, after extraction and Grignard derivation with PrMgCl. Concentrations between 1 and 20 ng/l are found.