A brief overview of the most common domains of applications for ICP-OES

The Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy or ICP-OES is a trace level, elemental analysis procedure which was developed 25 years back. Since then, it has been widely used and now it has become one of the most versatile methods of inorganic analysis. Icp Oes uses the emission spectra of a sample to identify and quantify the proportions of elements present in a sample. Though the features of ICP OES are often compared to atomic absorption spectrophotometers, ICP-OES efficiently excites many elements.

How does ICP OES work?

As the name suggests the ICP OES principle is based on optical emission spectrometry. In the technique, plasma energy is provided to a sample from the outside. This causes the component elements or the atoms of the sample to be excited. However, the excited atoms are bound to return to their low energy position, and when they do so, spectrum rays or emission rays are released that correspond to the measured photon wavelength. Based on the rays’ intensity the content of each element is determined and the position of the photon rays’ element type is analyzed.

With the ICP OES principle low chemical and matrix interference effects can be determined. Besides the process facilitates high sample throughput which enables the efficient analysis of large batches. With ICP OES simultaneous determinations of multiple elements can be done in each sample. The technique allows a large dynamic range and complementary analysis to techniques such as XRF.

Typical Applications

• Environmental and agrochemical analysis: The purity of drinking water, underground water, seawater, soil types, and sludge’s as well as other environmental elements are analyzed using ICP-OES.
• Metallurgy analysis: Another use of ICP OES is in managing the metallurgical samples for ferrous, non-ferrous as well as precious metals in the oldest application fields of geology.
• Chemical analysis: For product quality control or during the manufacturing process, ICP-OES is used by many industries to handle and analyze chemical samples.
• Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals analysis: ICP OES is well adapted in analyzing the presence of heavy metals in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.
• Nuclear energy analysis: High-resolution ICP-OES spectrometers can manage all kinds of samples for nuclear energy applications in the mining, geological, environmental, metallurgical, nuclear fuel analysis, or nuclear waste management fields.
• Petrochemistry analysis: ICP-OES can directly analyze organic solvents that simplify the analysis of petrochemical samples. So, using ICP-OES, solvents in xylene, kerosene, or other volatile solvents can be determined.
• Mining/ Geology/ Rare earth elements analysis: ICP OES is widely used to handle mining purity control. The process is used to check the purity of the extracted ores, nickel, manganese, or other precious metals.

The bottom line

Several industries like food and beverages, materials, minerals, healthcare, glass, ceramics, and refractors as well as a variety of other sectors have embraced ICP OES because of its accuracy and efficiency. In addition, ICP OES can overcome the limitations of atomic absorption spectrophotometers and detect elements like Zr, P, B, Ta, and rare earth metals that are difficult to analyze in atomic absorption spectrometry. In a nutshell, the process of ICP OES is a well-regarded measurement technique and its use is expected to expand even further in the future.

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