POSTER Direct Analysis of Gold and Silver Nanoparticles of Different Sizes from Dried Droplets
                 Using Substrate-Assisted Laser Desorption Single Particle-ICP MS


                              Bělehrad Jakub^1, and Preisler Jan^1,2

              ^1Laboratory of Bioanalytical Instrumentation, Department of Chemistry,

                             Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

                        ^2CEITEC – Central European Institue of Technology,
                             Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic


Summary

This contribution deals with the determination of gold and silver nanoparticles by
Substrate-Assisted Laser Desorption Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (SALD ICP MS).
Water suspensions of the both silver and gold nanoparticles of different sizes (20, 40, 60 and 80
nm) were deposited onto a polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) plate using a commercial
micropipette. After the evaporation of the solvent the PETG plate was transferred into the
commercial ablation chamber. Dried droplets which contained nanoparticles were irradiated by Nd:YAG
laser (213 nm). Ablated nanoparticles were carried from the ablation chamber by helium into the ICP
plasma and analyzed by mass spectrometer in a single particle mode. In order to gain the highest
transport efficiency of each nanoparticle size, the conditions of analysis including laser fluence,
laser beam scan rate and carrier gas flow rate were optimized. The advantages of the developed
method are low sample volume consumption, possibility of the archiving of the sample and
outstanding sensitivity in the order of units of silver or gold nanoparticles.


Acknowledgment

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Czech Science Foundation under the projects
GA15-05387S and GA18-16583S and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic
under the projects CEITEC LQ1601 and  MUNI/A/1286/2017.


References

Benešová, I.; Dlabková, K.; Zelenák, F.; Vaculovič, T.; Kanický, V.; Preisler, J.; Anal.
Chem. 2016, 88, 2576–2582.