Quantification of potentially toxic elements in food material by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) via pressed pellets Papaslioti, Evgenia-Maria Parviainen, Annika Jenni Johana Roman-Alpiste, Manuel Jesús Marchesi, Claudio Garrido, Carlos Jesús Food analysis LA-ICP-MS Pressed-pellets Leaf reference materials Trace elements Analytical protocol Green chemistry ‘Juan de la Cierva – Incorporación’ (IJCI-2016-27412) Fellowship and Dr. C. Marchesi the “Ramón y Cajal” (RYC-2012-11314) Fellowship financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). Dr. C.J. Garrido acknowledges funding from Spanish MINECO-CSIC grant RECUPERA-2020 (“Monitorización de contaminantes en la cadena agroalimentaria-Hito 2”). Fellowships, research and infrastructure grants leading to this research have been (co)funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERFD) of the European Commission. Here, we validated a protocol for the elemental analysis of plant and food materials using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and pressed pellets in compliance with the Green Chemistry principles, i.e. avoiding the use of hazardous reagents. The protocol included sample pre-treatment, preparation of pellets, and LA-ICP-MS optimisation for the food sample matrix using leaf certified reference materials. Sample homogenisation and particle size reduction (∼10 µm) for samples with larger initial particle sizes proved crucial in improving signal stability and analytical results, whereas the raster mode was preferred over spot mode for greater accuracy. The validation of the technique was successful for determination of Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Cd and Pb (z-score values  ≤2). We propose LA-ICP-MS using pressed pellets as an alternative to ICP-MS in food analysis. 2024-10-30T12:35:12Z 2024-10-30T12:35:12Z 2018 journal article Published version: Papaslioti, Parviainen, Román Alpiste, Marchesi, & Garrido. (2019). Quantification of potentially toxic elements in food material by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) via pressed pellets. Food Chemistry, 274, 726-732. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.FOODCHEM.2018.08.118 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/96513 10.1016/J.FOODCHEM.2018.08.118 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier