The 23rd ICP-MS User Meeting was held jointly with the 10th Symposium on Mass Spectrometry Methods for Trace Element Analysis on September 10-12 at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Tulln, Austria. The meeting is a biannual event of analytical chemists held in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. This year it was organized by Thomas Prohaska, Stephan Hann, Johanna Irrgeher, and member of the editorial board Gunda Köllensperger.
Attendees listening to a talk (picture by VIRIS lab).
Over 120 attendees discussed fundamentals, applications, and future trends in ICP-MS. The meeting was a great venue for scientific exchange between ICP-MS users in academia and industry as well as instrument manufactures. Over the course of three days, young investigators and established scientists presented highlights of their research and discussed cutting-edge topics and challenging issues in 30 oral and 17 poster presentations. Lectures were held in three main sessions, materials testing, biological applications, and environmental applications. Instrument manufactures had the opportunity to present features and benefits of their ICP mass spectrometers in a dedicated vendor session and the exhibition hall. Posters could be assessed for the entire period of the user meeting with scheduled poster sessions to meet the authors.
We are very much looking forward to the next ICP-MS User Meeting, which will we held in Germany in 2014. Daniel Pröfrock and his team will organize the event at the Helmholtz Centre in Geesthacht.
Bastian Franze and Carsten Engelhard
Take a look at some recent papers from the meeting organizers:
Accurate quantification of mercury in river water by isotope dilution MC-ICP-SFMS and ICP-QMS detection after cold vapour generation,
Lisa Fischer, Marion Brunner, Thomas Prohaska and Stephan Hann, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012,27, 1983-1991.
Sulfur containing amino acids – challenge of accurate quantification,
Evelyn Rampler, Thomas Dalik, Gerhard Stingeder, Stephan Hann and Gunda Koellensperger,J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2012,27, 1018-1023.
