Dear everyone,
ICP-based analytical instruments (Agilent ICP-MS 7900) often have white dot-like deposits on the quartz transmission line. Are these substances salt deposits? We use 10% nitric acid soaking ultrasound over night, however, the effect is not great and white spots (deposited salt) can still be seen after cleaning. Is there a more effective way to clean the salt from the quartz?
I‘m looking forword to your answer, thank you!
In laboratories glassware cleaning done with mix solution of (potassium dichromate + distilled water + Sulfuric acid).
I remember during my PhD we were using chromosulfuric acid which is a powerful oxidizing agent, it can be used to clean laboratory glassware, particularly of otherwise insoluble organic residues maybe try this.
Be wary of solutions with high concentrations of chromium as suggested: you might contaminate the glassware with so much Cr it will be useless for Cr measurements (and possibly other isotopes eg 54Fe, 64Zn (= polyatomic 12C52Cr etc).
There are other acids and mixtures that can be used, but they are either dangerous or toxic (or both). Check with your lab safety officer before trying anything, in case you are endangering yourself or your labmates.
Perhaps you should check if the salt deposits are affecting your analyses by running some blank samples and checking against blanks from when you originally installed the transfer tube.
If you continue to get deposition, maybe you should dilute the samples by a greater amount. Could the deposits be another material you haven't considered (eg Boron).
Maybe purchase a second set of glassware for low salt matrices and keep the salted pieces for high salt liquids, just to be sure.
We soak our Spectro Blue torch in aqua regia for a while, but it only cleans so much and eventually the quartz torch gets dull and it seems some deposits are there to stay. New torch is extremely expensive, but that's the pain you have to take every now and then.
You can use dilute HCL and if it doesn’t work then soak it in aqua Regia
In principle, the cleaning of this type of device can be found in its instructions.
However, to avoid problems, you can directly contact the manufacturer of ICP (Agilent ICP- MS 7900)
Christian Ward-Deitrich Thanks for the comment. The method you provide is undoubtedly a very effective cleaning method for glassware, however, it is not suitable for cleaning the glass tube (torch) of ICP-MS.
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