Advances in engineering and energy require the analysis of materials. Generally, solids are dissolved and atomized to provide samples to a mass spectrometer. But some solids are notoriously difficult to dissolve. Current techniques include adding concentrated acids or bases, washing in hazardous chemicals, increasing temperatures or pressures, or a combination. These processes can be time-consuming or costly and often result in samples that do not accurately represent the material.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's high-temperature plasma system meets these challenges. It can dissolve even difficult-to-dissolve solids. Such solids include, but are not limited to, glasses, silicates, carbides, metal oxides, corrosion-resistant metals such as zirconium and talantum, ceramics, soils, clays, concrete, mortar, brick, rock, and plastics.

Using an ablation device, the system generates nanoscale particles that are swept into a coupled high-temperature plasma device operating at atmospheric pressure to be atomized. Example devices include inductively coupled plasma, AC-arc plasma, DC-arc plasma, laser-induced plasma, and others. The resulting fluid forms a solution containing atomized and dissolved solids, with less than 2 percent by weight of any dissolution agent. This solution has been shown to reflect the composition of the original solid sample.

The system enables stable measurement of solutions containing atomized and dissolved solids for materials and other analyses. Results have been demonstrated using National Institute for Standards and Technology standard glasses and boron carbide that have been analyzed by elemental and isotopic analyses.