Gas phase sampling of volatile (organo)metallic compounds above solid samples

A screening method has been developed for detection of volatile metallic compounds in solid samples by examining the vapour phase above the sample with a solid phase microextraction probe. After the sampling process, the collected volatile compounds were introduced into an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) via a specially designed thermal desorption interface which liberates the analyte from the extraction phase. The feasibility of this approach was evaluated by studying various solid reference materials certified for several elemental species. The proposed method currently offers a qualitative/semiquantitative method for the rapid screening of environmental, biological and food samples for the presence of volatile toxic elements such as arsenic, tin, antimony, mercury, lead, etc. The total analysis time, including the full analytical procedure from the sampling/extraction to the instrumental measurement, takes less than three minutes, depending on the concentration of the target compounds.