What’s my exposure risk to heavy metals such as lead, antimony, beryllium, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury?

Trace elemental analysis

Teledyne Leeman Labs has specialized in trace elemental analysis for over 40 years. With initial success in Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), also referred to as Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), Teledyne Leeman Labs went on to develop innovative product lines. Those included branching out into various elemental analysis techniques, including DC Arc and Mercury Analysis. Our elemental analysis instruments can be found in laboratories across the world, providing service to a range of industries. From agriculture to aerospace and food to forensics, Teledyne Leeman Labs is dedicated to providing world-class instruments for trace elemental analysis.

Figure 1: Atomic Spectra for mercury (Hg), Copyright © Richard Pogge, All Rights Reserved

Atomic absorption spectroscopy

Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) is one of the first commercially available elemental analysis techniques. This tried-and-true method remains a top choice for its simplicity and reliability.

Cold Vapor Atomic Florescence Spectroscopy (CVAF)

In contrast to most cold vapor atomic absorption (CVAA) systems, the desirable characteristics of CVAFS-based mercury analyzers include:

Factsheet and Understanding the Importance of Testing Mercury in Wastewater

What is Wastewater and Why Treat it?

With today’s blog, let’s get to know the employees of Teledyne Tekmar/Leeman Labs. The next person I would like to introduce you to is Aaron Keller.

Aaron is the Leeman Labs Quality Control Chemist for the Mercury product line. He will be approaching his first full year of working Teledyne here soon.

Let's learn more about Aaron.

With today’s blog, let’s get to know the employees of Teledyne Tekmar/Leeman Labs. The next person I would like to introduce you to is Sara Kennedy.

Sara is the Applications Chemist for Teledyne Leeman Labs. She is an expert in mercury analysis using the Quicktrace^® and Hydra II product lines. She is responsible for the overlap between marketing and chemistry. Sara helps develop analytical methods for testing customer samples, provides technical input during sales calls, and provides guidance about all thing’s mercury analysis. Sara has been with Teledyne Leeman Labs for 3 years. She was previously the Quality Control Chemist for the Teledyne Leeman Labs product lines. She is also responsible for the Hydra II C catalyst production.

Let’s ask Sara some questions to get to know her better.

In this edition of the blog, we will continue to examine various methods of sample preparation.

Dry Ashing

Samples containing a high percentage of organic matter (biologicals and foodstuffs, for example) can be prepared by a procedure known as "dry ashing" With this technique, an amount of sample is heated in a crucible over a flame or in a muffle furnace. The use of a muffle furnace is preferred as it permits greater control of the temperature. The sample residue is then dissolved, and the analysis is performed.

Mercury Testing in Water and Health Effects of Mercury in Drinking Water

How does mercury get into drinking water supplies? How do we know when our drinking water is polluted? How does mercury contamination impact human health? In this blog we will focus on the sources of mercury in the environment, discuss health risks associated with mercury exposure, examine water treatment for mercury, review existing regulation designed to monitor and mitigate mercury and highlight Teledyne Leeman Labs’ role in manufacturing analyzers that test for mercury in water samples.

What Is ICP Heavy Metal Analysis?

Heavy metals, including arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (PB) and mercury (Hg) occur naturally in nature, and in low concentrations pose little health risk. When concentrations increase however, their presence can be toxic to plants, animals and humans. Because they are systemic toxins, routine testing is used to determine their presence and concentration. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classifies these metals as either “known” or “probable” human carcinogens.¹

This is part 2 of the Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry series.  Part 1 described what ICP-OES is and how it works.  Part 2 will be an overview and cover some of the components.

Overview

Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) is a multi-element, trace-analysis technique used to measure the concentration of various elements in a variety of sample matrices. Also known as Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the technique is capable of measuring the majority of the elements in the Periodic Table and is currently one of the most widely used methods for elemental analysis today.