Standardization of Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrometer (ICP-MS) and Thermal Ionization Mass-Spectrometer (TIMS)

Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS) is a highly sensitive isotope mass characterization technique which exploits the thermal ionization effect, which is an extensively acknowledged system for accurate isotopic ratio measurements of different materials of importance in the fields of nuclear technology, geochemistry, cosmochemistry and nuclear medicine. On the other hand, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) is another very commanding techniques used for the determination of trace amounts of elements in a variety of samples which consist of environmental samples, geological materials, biological samples and even nuclear materials. It involves multi-elemental detection covering a broad linear dynamic range with very low detection limits, along with the ability to measure isotopic ratio. Furthermore, a quadruple based ICP-MS is employed for the elemental determination at trace and ultra-trace levels along with their isotope ratio measurements in different type of materials. Technical Physics Division (TPD) of BARC has been developing these instruments for various requirements of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). In this context, TPD, BARC has installed one ICP-MS and one TIMS ChED, BARC. The present article describes the standardization of these instruments using the standards of Zinc and Gadolinium for evaluating their performances for elemental and isotopic concentration of Zinc and Gadolinium