ICP-MS opinions?

[EnvironLab]

Any opinions on a good ICP-MS? We've been looking at Varian, Agilent, and Perkin Elmer. Any common problems?

[promochrom]

ICP-MS from PE and Agilent have good reputation and the highest market share. The common problem is cost and large consumption of Ar. However, if you need to analyse elemetns at ppt level and the sample number is large, perhaps you have to use ICP-MS. A common problem in ICP-MS is polyatomic interference. Agilent just anounced their new product can remove this interference.

[akthmps]

The Varian ICP-MS was recently purchased by my former employer and my colleagues there have been *very* impressed with the system so far. They previously had a Perkin Elmer system, and they are already saying that they prefer the Varian even though they're still becoming familiar with it...

-Aaron

[romanlgn]

Agilent ICPMS systems tend to be more difficult to work on, maintenance wise. They also remove the "chemist" from the situation when one optimizes it for a tune. Typically, when you tune an ICPMS, you adjust it for you specific application, the Agilent one makes this A LOT more difficult.
The Elan series, allows you to easily make these adjustments. Maintenance is very simple. The only draw back is that you need to know your chemistry/physics to be a successful programmer/operator. As far as polyatomics, there is the DRC.

[AICMM]

Environlab,

I have a friend in the same business as you who has two Agilent ICP-MS. They have had a devil of a time with turbopump failure. Because their system was under contract, it did not kill them on cost but it could have been very expensive. They are now looking at other systems. If you want more information, I will ask this friend if he is interested in sharing viewpoint.

Best regards.

[Davide]

I have worked with an Agilent ICPMS without any specific problems. This is a powerfull instrument. It's simple to set up an analysis method for full or semi quant analysis.

Regards

Davide

[sassman]

We recently purchased an ICP/MS, and talked to a few people who have used both Varian (although not the newer Varian instruments) and Perkin Elmer instruments. My take on it is that the Perkin Elmer instrument design is well tested and very reliable. The newer Varian instruments have a newly patented design for eliminating polyatomics which may or may not be better than PE's design, but it hasn't been around for long. Also Varian uses a solid state RF generator which although smaller is somewhat less stable than the RF generator that the PE instruments use. We went for the Perkin Elmer DRCe, and have been very happy.