Microwave Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (MP-AES) and its Applications – A Critical Review

Abstract The evolution of microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry (MP-AES) was slower and it did not achieve some commercial success until the introduction of Agilent’s instrument in 2011. During the last nine years, the technique was utilized for the analyses of several metals from per cent to ng/ml levels in a variety of materials from drinking water to the most complex geological materials such as rocks and ores. The technique showed promising performance as a quantitative analytical tool and many groups published several papers dealing with the application of MP-AES in a variety of fields such as geological, environmental, food, health, energy, agricultural, pharmaceuticals, and waste electrical and electronic equipment regulation (WEEE)/restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) compliance. Over this period, the instrument was also hyphenated to cold vapor (CV), hydride generation (HG), photochemical vapor generation (PVG), gas chromatography (GC) and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques for the sensitive and accurate determination of elements like Hg, As and Se. In this review, an attempt is made to present an overview of the MP-AES technique along with a critical appraisal of its performance in different areas during the last 9 years (2012 – 2020). Future developments may focus on some of the drawbacks of the current systems such as source robustness and new spectrometer design for simultaneous wavelength measurements to compete with ICP-based techniques.