EWCPS 2025 - 20th European Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry
Lecture
03.03.2025 (CET)
Introducing TOFHunter – A Tool for Screening ICP-TOF-MS Data
HA

Hunter Andrews (Ph.D.)

Oak Rige National Laboratory

Andrews, H. (Speaker)¹; Hendriks, L.²; Irvine, S.¹; Dunlap, D.¹; Manard, B.¹
¹Oak Ridge National Laboratory; ²University of Vienna
Vorschau
20 Min. Untertitel (CC)

This study provides an overview of a newly developed program written in Python, TOFHunter, which permits the rapid and untargeted screening of inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-time-of-flight (TOF)-mass spectrometry (MS) datasets. ICP-TOF-MS is an analytical tool capable of providing quasisimultaneous detection of all nuclides from Li to Pu. This capability has triggered an increase in studies investigating single-particle analysis in which the TOF-MS provides correlated elemental/isotopic signatures on a particle basis in time. Similarly, laser ablation mapping has seen rapid growth owing to ICP-TOF-MS’s capacity to handle fast washout times (<10 ms) while providing a broad nuclide coverage. The caveat to this broad mass coverage and high time resolution comes in the form of large, overwhelming datasets. With datasets typically on the scale of gigabytes, it is easy for a user to only focus on very targeted analytes; however, this focus diminishes the opportunity offered by the TOF-MS detector. TOFHunter applies chemometric methods, principal component analysis, and interesting features finder on unprocessed ICP-TOF-MS data, allowing for investigation of correlations, major and minor variance sources, and sample screening. The unique spectra identified by the interesting features finder are used to generate a list of mass peaks, which are then matched with both nuclides and potential interferences before being exported for the user to investigate. Several case studies are discussed herein, demonstrating TOFHunter’s ability to screen aqueous injections, single-particle/single-cell analysis, and probe laser ablation mapping files for unique regions of interest.

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