A comparison of nebulizers for microbore LC-ICP-MS with mobile phases containing methanol

A comparison was made between a glass concentric nebulizer, a microconcentric nebulizer (MCN), and a Micro Mist nebulizer for the introduction of mobile phases containing varying concentrations of methanol. For all nebulizers investigated, the signal remains constant with increasing sample flow rate at methanol concentrations greater than 20% of the mobile phase, even though the rate that sample reaches the plasma increases at increasing flow rates. A separation of tributlytin chloride (TBT) and triphenyltin chloride (TPhT) on a microbore reversed-phase HPLC column using a mobile phase consisting of 70% methanol, 29% water, 1% glacial acetic acid and 4 mM ion pair reagent was investigated. At a flow rate of 0.2 ml min(-1), the absolute detection limits for the MCN were slightly higher than those obtained with the Micro Mist nebulizer or the glass concentric nebulizer. Precision and the linearity of the calibration curves were comparable for all three nebulizers.